4 


A  HISTORY 


OF 


CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP 


I 

2Lont)cm:  C.  J.  CLAY  and  SONS, 
CAMBRIDGE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS  WAREHOUSE, 
AVE  MARIA  LANE. 


ffilaegoh) : 


5°. 


ILeipjtg :  F.  A.  BROCKHAUS. 
lorfe:  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 
33ombag  anti  (Calcutta:  MACMILLAN  AND  CO.,  Ltd. 


[All  Rights  reserved. ] 


SCENES  FROM  THE  SCHOOLS  OF  ATHENS  EARLY  IN  THE  FIFTH  CENTURY  B.C. 

Vase-painting  by  Duris  on  a  Cylix,  with  red  figures  on  black  ground,  found  at  Caere, 

and  now  in  the  Berlin  Antiquarium. 


Frontispiece ,  described  on  p.  42. 


A  HISTORY 


OF 

CLASSICAL  SCHOLARSHIP 


FROM  THE  SIXTH  CENTUR  Y  B.C. 

TO  THE  END  OF  THE  MIDDLE  AGES 


BY 

JOHN  EDWIN  SANDYS,  Litt.D., 


PHI | 


FELLOW  AND  LECTURER  OF  ST  JOHN  S  COLLEGE, 

AND  PUBLIC  ORATOR  IN  THE  UNIVERSITY  OF  CAMBRIDGE, 


D.  DUBLIN 


S  a  S'/ 


CAMBRIDGE 

AT  THE  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

1903 


BOOK 


m 

SI 

■5$ 

ficn 


Quid  est  aetas  hominis ,  nisi  ea  memorid  rerum  veterum 
cum  superiorum  aetate  contexitur  ? 

Cicero,  Orator,  §  120. 


O'WEIZi.  Library 

boston  college 


PREFACE. 


HE  present  work  owes  its  origin  to  the  fact  that,  some  nine 


JL  years  ago,  at  the  kind  suggestion  of  my  friend  Professor 
Jebb,  I  was  invited  by  the  editor  of  Social  England  to  prepare  a 
brief  survey  of  the  History  of  Scholarship,  which  was  included  in  the 
volumes  published  in  1896  and  1897.  In  course  of  time  I  formed 
a  plan  for  a  more  comprehensive  treatment  of  the  History  of 
Classical  Scholarship  in  general,  which  should  begin  with  its  birth 
in  the  Athenian  age,  should  trace  its  growth  in  the  Alexandrian 
and  Roman  times,  and  then  pass  onwards,  through  the  Middle 
Ages,  to  the  Revival  of  Learning,  and  to  the  further  developements 
in  the  study  of  the  ancient  Classics  among  the  nations  of  Europe 
and  in  the  English-speaking  peoples  across  the  seas.  I  was  already 
familiar  with  the  Outlines  of  the  History  of  Classical  Philology  by 
Professor  Gudeman  of  Philadelphia ;  and  I  may  add  that,  if,  in 
place  of  the  eighty  pages  of  his  carefully  planned  Outlines ,  the 
learned  author  of  that  work  had  produced  a  complete  History  on 
the  same  general  lines,  there  might  have  been  little  need  for  any 
other  work  on  the  same  subject  in  the  English  language.  But,  in 
the  absence  of  any  such  History,  it  appeared  to  be  worth  my 
while  to  endeavour  to  meet  this  obvious  want,  and,  a  few  years 
ago,  my  proposal  to  prepare  a  general  History  of  Classical 
Scholarship  was  accepted  by  the  Syndics  of  the  University  Press. 
My  aim  has  been,  so  far  as  practicable,  to  produce  a  readable 
book,  which  might  also  serve  as  a  work  of  reference.  I  confess 
that  the  work  has  grown  under  my  hands  to  a  far  larger  bulk  than 


VI 


PREFACE. 


I  had  ever  contemplated ;  but,  when  I  reflect  that  a  German 
‘  History  of  Classical  Philology  which  does  not  go  beyond  the 
fourth  century  of  our  era,  fills  as  many  as  1 900  large  octavo  pages, 
I  am  disposed  to  feel  (like  Warren  Hastings)  ‘  astounded  at  my 
moderation  ’.  I  had  hoped  to  complete  the  whole  of  my  task  in 
a  single  volume,  but  this  has  proved  impossible,  owing  mainly  to 
the  vast  extent  and  the  complexity  of  the  literature  connected 
with  the  history  of  classical  learning  in  the  West  of  Europe  during 
the  eight  centuries  of  the  Middle  Ages.  In  studying  this  part  of 
my  subject,  I  have  found  myself  compelled  to  struggle  with  a 
great  array  of  texts,  in  various  volumes  of  the  Rolls  Series,  the 
Monumenta  Germaniae  Historica ,  and  Migne’s  Patrologia  Latina ; 
and  to  master  the  contents  of  a  multitude  of  scattered  mono¬ 
graphs  in  French,  German  and  Italian,  as  well  as  English,  publi¬ 
cations.  With  these  and  other  resources  I  have  endeavoured  to 
trace  the  later  fortunes  of  the  Latin  Classics,  to  deal  with  all  the 
more  important  indications  of  the  mediaeval  knowledge  of  Greek, 
and  to  give  an  outline  of  the  Scholastic  Philosophy.  Without 
taking  some  account  of  the  latter,  it  is  impossible  to  have  an 
adequate  understanding  of  the  literature  of  the  Middle  Ages. 
And  it  is  a  necessary  part  of  my  subject,  in  so  far  as  it  arose  out 
of  the  study  of  translations  of  Greek  texts,  and  was  inextricably 
bound  up  with  the  successive  stages  in  the  gradual  expansion  of 
the  mediaeval  knowledge  of  the  works  of  Aristotle.  But,  in  tracing 
the  general  course  of  a  form  of  philosophy,  which,  however  valu¬ 
able  as  a  kind  of  mental  gymnastic,  was  on  the  whole  unfavourable 
to  the  wide  and  liberal  study  of  the  great  masterpieces  of  Classical 
Literature,  I  have  mainly  confined  myself  to  the  points  of  immediate 
contact  with  the  History  of  Scholarship ;  and  thus  (if  I  may  give 
a  new  turn  to  a  phrase  in  Seneca),  quae  philosophia  fuit,  facta 
philologia  est  \  In  the  work  in  general  I  have  studied  the  History 
of  Scholarship  in  connexion  with  the  literary,  and  even,  to  some 
slight  extent,  the  political  history  of  each  period.  But  the  treat- 

1  Ep.  108  §  23. 


PREFACE. 


Vll 


ment  of  the  principal  personages  portrayed  in  the  course  of  the 
work  has  not  been  on  any  rigidly  uniform  scale.  Thus,  among 
the  three  great  authors  of  far-reaching  influence,  who  stand  on  the 
threshold  of  the  Middle  Ages,  there  is  necessarily  far  less  to  be 
said  about  the  personality  of  Priscian  than  about  that  of  Boethius 
or  of  Cassiodorus.  Many  names  of  minor  importance,  which  are 
only  incidentally  mentioned  in  the  text,  have  been  excluded  from 
the  final  draft  of  the  Index,  and  space  has  thus  been  found  for 
the  fuller  treatment  of  more  important  names,  such  as  those  of 
Aristotle  and  Plato,  Cicero  and  Virgil.  The  study  of  the  subject 
will,  I  trust,  be  further  facilitated  by  means  of  the  twelve  chrono¬ 
logical  tables.  A  list  of  these  will  be  found  on  page  xi. 

Of  the  twelve  divisions  of  my  subject  (set  forth  on  page  14), 
the  first  six  are  included  in  the  present  volume,  which  aims  at 
being  complete  so  far  as  it  extends,  and,  in  point  of  time,  covers 
as  many  as  nineteen  of  the  twenty-five  centuries,  with  which  those 
divisions  are  concerned.  In  continuation  of  this  work,  I  hope  to 
produce,  at  no  distant  date,  a  separate  volume  on  the  History  of 
Scholarship  from  the  time  of  Petrarch  to  the  present  day.  The 
first  draft  of  a  large  part  of  that  volume  has  already  been  pre¬ 
pared,  and,  in  the  Easter  Vacation  of  last  year,  I  was  engaged  in 
the  further  study  of  the  literature  of  the  Renaissance,  as  well  as  of 
certain  portions  of  the  Middle  Ages,  in  the  hospitable  libraries  of 
Florence.  In  the  spring  of  the  present  year  I  visited  the  homes 
of  mediaeval  learning  on  the  Loire,  and  also  studied  the  sculptured 
and  the  written  memorials  of  the  mediaeval  system  of  education, 
which  still  survive  as  a  visible  embodiment  of  the  influences  that 
moulded  the  mind  of  John  of  Salisbury  in  ‘the  classic  calm  of 
Chartres  \ 

It  is  a  pleasure  to  conclude  this  preface  by  offering  the  tribute 
of  my  thanks  to  all  who  in  any  way  have  helped  towards  the 
completion  of  what  has  unavoidably  proved  a  very  laborious 
undertaking.  My  gratitude  is  due,  in  the  first  place,  to  the 
Syndics  of  the  University  Press,  and  to  the  staff  of  the  same, 


Vlll 


PREFACE. 


not  forgetting  the  ever-attentive  Reader,  who  (besides  more 
important  corrections)  has  endeavoured  to  reduce  the  spelling 
of  mediaeval  names  to  a  uniformity  little  dreamt  of  in  the 
Middle  Ages  themselves.  If,  in  the  next  place,  I  may  here  record 
my  thanks  to  those  under  whose  influence  this  volume  has  been 
prepared,  I  cannot  forget  the  friend  who  (as  I  have  stated  in 
the  opening  words  of  this  preface)  gave  the  first  impulse  which 
led  to  the  ultimate  production  of  the  present  work.  If,  again,  I 
may  give  a  single  example  of  all  that  I  owe  to  two  other  scholars — 
one  of  whom  I  have  happily  known  for  forty  years,  the  other, 
alas  !  for  too  few — a  hint  from  the  late  Lord  Acton  gave  me  my 
first  clear  impression  of  the  erudition  of  Vincent  of  Beauvais ; 
a  word  from  Professor  Mayor  set  me  at  work  on  Joannes  de 
Garlandia.  Among  the  Fellows  of  Trinity,  Dr  Henry  Jackson 
has  been  good  enough  to  supply  me  with  a  clear  statement  of 
his  views  on  Plato’s  Cratylus ,  and  Mr  James  Duff  has  kindly 
tested  and  confirmed  my  opinion  as  to  a  point  connected  with 
the  mediaeval  study  of  Lucretius1.  The  College  catalogues  and 
other  works  of  Dr  James  have  brought  to  my  knowledge  not  a 
few  points  of  interest  in  the  mediaeval  manuscripts  of  Cambridge. 
I  have  thus  been  led  to  include  among  the  facsimiles  an  autograph 
of  Lanfranc,  an  extract  from  a  copy  of  the  works  of  John  of 
Salisbury,  which  once  belonged  to  Becket,  and  the  colophon  of 
an  early  transcript  of  a  translation  by  William  of  Moerbeke. 
Four  of  the  facsimiles  are  here  published  for  the  first  time.  To 
Sir  Edward  Maunde  Thompson,  and  to  his  publishers,  Messrs 
Kegan  Paul  and  Co.,  I  am  indebted  for  the  use  of  five  of  the 
many  facsimiles  which  adorn  his  well-known  Handbook  of  Greek 
and  Latin  Palaeography.  I  have  also  borrowed  two  short  extracts 
from  the  three  hundred  facsimiles  in  Chatelain’s  Paleographie 
des  Classiques  Latins ,  and  one  from  those  in  Wattenbach  and 
von  Velsen’s  Exempla  Codicum  Graecorum.  I  have  to  thank 
the  Registrary  of  the  University  for  the  use  of  a  single  illustra- 

1  p.  515  n.  3. 


PREFACE. 


IX 


tion  (and  the  offer  of  more)  from  his  important  volume  on  the 
Care  of  Books ;  and  I  gratefully  recall  the  trouble  taken  on  my 
behalf  by  the  Librarian  and  the  staff  of  the  University  Library ; 
by  the  Librarians  of  Peterhouse,  Gonville  and  Caius,  Corpus  Christi, 
Magdalene,  and  Trinity  Colleges ;  by  the  Librarian  and  Assistant 
Librarian  of  my  own  College  ;  and  by  one  of  my  former  pupils, 
Professor  Rapson,  of  the  British  Museum.  My  debt  to  the 
published  works  of  scholars  at  home  and  abroad  is  fully  shown 
in  the  notes  to  the  following  pages. 


J.  E.  SANDYS. 


Merton  House, 
Cambridge, 

October ,  1903. 


S. 


b 


. 


- 


* 


- 


-v': 


. 


CONTENTS. 


List  of  Illustrations . 

Titles  of  Certain  Works  of  Reference 

Abbreviations . 

Addenda  and  Corrigenda . 

Outline  of  Principal  Contents  of  pp.  i — 650 

Index  . 

Greek  Index  . 


PAGE 

xii 

XV 

xviii 

xviii 

xix 

651 

672 


CONSPECTUS  OF  CHRONOLOGICAL  TABLES. 


Greek  Literature  &rc.  page 

c.  840 —  300  b.C .  18 

c.  300 —  1  b.C . 104 

I —  300  A.D . 262 

300 —  600  A.D . 340 

600 — IOOO  A.D . 378 

IOOO— 1453  A.D . 4OO 


Latin  Literature  Lfc.  *  page 

c.  300—  1  B.C . 166 

1 —  300A.D . ,....186 

300 —  600  A.D . 204 

600 — IOOO  A.D . 430 

IOOO — 1200  A.D . 496 

1200 — I4OO  A.D . . . 538 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


(1)  Scenes  from  the  Schools  of  Athens,  early  in  the  fifth  century  B.C.,  from 

a  vase-painting  by  Duris  on  a  Cylix  with  red  figures  on  a  black  ground,  found 
at  Caere  in  1872  and  now  in  the  Berlin  Antiquarium  (no.  2285).  Reproduced 
partly  from  the  large  coloured  copy  in  Monumenti  del  Institute ?,  ix  (1873), 
pi.  54,  and  partly  from  the  small  lithographed  outline  in  the  Archdologische 
Zeitung ,  xxxi  (1874),  1 — 14.  The  central  design  is  from  the  inside,  the  rest 
from  the  outside  of  the  Cylix  .  .  Frontispiece ,  described  on  p.  42 

(2)  Masks  of  Comedy  and  Tragedy.  British  Museum  .  .  51 

(3)  Seated  figure  of  ‘  Aristotle  ’.  Spada  Palace ,  Rome  .  .  66 

(4)  From  the  earliest  extant  ms  of  the  Phaedo  of  Plato ;  Petrie  papyrus 

in  the  British  Museum  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  87 

(5)  Portrait  of  Alexander  the  Great ;  on  a  silver  tetradrachm  of  Lysimachus, 

king  of  Thrace.  British  Museum  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  102 

(6)  Portraits  of  Ptolemy  I  and  II,  Founders  of  the  Alexandrian  Library; 
on  a  gold  octadrachm  of  Ptolemy  II  and  Arsinoe  II.  British  Museum  143 

(7)  Portrait  of  Eumenes  II,  Founder  of  the  Pergamene  Library;  on  a 

silver  tetradrachm  in  the  British  Museum  .  .  .  .  .  164 

(8)  From  Codex  Sangallensis  1394  (Century  iv  or  v)  of  Virgil. 

St  Gallen  ............  185 

(9)  From  Codex  Laurentianus  xlvi  7  (Century  x)  of  Quintilian.  Laurentian 

Library,  Florence  ..........  203 

(10)  From  Codex  Laurentianus  lxiii  19  (Century  x)  of  Livy.  Laurentian 

Library ,  Florence  ..........  236 

(n)  From  the  Biblical  Commentary  of  Monte  Cassino,  written  before 
569  B.C.  Monte  Cassino  .........  260 

(12)  From  the  Codex  Parisinus  (914  a.d.)  of  Clemens  Alexandrinus. 

Bibliothcque  Nationale,  Paris . 326 

(13)  From  a  Paris  manuscript  (1223  a.d.)  of  a  student’s  copy  of  David  the 

Armenian’s  Commentary  on  Porphyry’s  Introduction  to  Aristotle’s  Categories. 
Bibliotheque  Nationale ,  Paris . .  338 

(14)  Beginning  of  the  last  Dialogue  in  the  Bodleian  Plato  (895A.D.). 

Reproduced  from  a  photograph  taken  from  the  Leyden  Facsimile  of  the 
original  MS  in  the  Bodleian  Library ,  Oxford  .  .  .  .  37 6 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Xlll 


( 1 5)  End  of  Scholia  on  Hesiod’s  Works  and  Days  by  Manuel  Moschopulus, 

in  the  handwriting  of  Demetrius  Triclinius,  finished  on  Aug.  20,  IvSiktiuvos 
15 £tov s  jS’wkS'  (6824  A.M.  of  the  Byzantine  era=  1316  A.D.).  Biblioteca 
Marciano,,  Venice  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  428 

(16)  From  Cambridge  University  MS  (Century  Xi)  of  ^Elfric’s  Latin 

Grammar.  Reproduced  from  a  photograph  taken  from  the  original  in  the 
University  Library ,  Cambridge  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  495 

(17)  Specimens  of  Christ  Church,  Canterbury,  hand  ( c .  1070-84)  from 

near  the  end  of  a  ms  of  Decretals  and  Canons  bought  by  Lanfranc  from  the 
abbey  of  Bee  and  given  by  him  to  Christ  Church,  Canterbury.  The  first  of 
the  two  specimens  is  almost  certainly  in  the  hand- writing  of  Lanfranc:  —  Hunc 
librum  dato  precio  emptum  ego  Lanfrancns  archiepiscopus  de  Beccensi  cenobio 
in  Anglicam  terrain  deferri  feci  et  Ecclesiae  Christi  dedi.  Si  quis  eum  de  iure 
praefatae  Ecclesiae  abstulerit,  anathema  sit .  The  second  is  a  copy  of  the  first 
of  five  letters  addressed  to  Lanfranc  by  the  Antipope  ‘Clement  III’  (1084 — 
1101),  beginning  Clemens  episcopus ,  servus  servorum  Dei ,  Lanfranco  Cantuar- 
beriensi  archiepiscopo  salutem  et  apostolicam  benedictionem,  and  ending  omnesque 
coepiscopos  fratres  nostros  ex  nostra  parte  saluta ,  et  ad  honorem  et  utilitatem 
sanctae  Romanae  Ecclesiae  studio  sanctitatis  fraterne  hortare  (in  line  4  there 
must  be  a  lacuna  after  exoptamus).  Reproduced  from  a  photograph  taken 
from  the  original  in  Trinity  College  Library ,  Cambridge  .  .  .  503 

(18)  From  a  MS  of  John  of  Salisbury’s  Policraticus  and  Metalogicus  (1159), 

formerly  in  the  possession  of  Becket.  Reproduced  from  a  photograph  taken 
from  the  original  in  the  Library  of  Corpus  Christi  College ,  Cambridge  .  516 

(19)  Philosophy  and  the  Liberal  Aids,  versus  the  Poets.  From  the 
Hortns  Deliciarum  of  Herrad  von  Landsperg  (d.  1195),  destroyed  at  Strassburg 
in  1870.  The  inscriptions  are  as  follows.  On  the  outer  circle  : — Haec  exercicia 
quae  mundi  philosophia  |  investigavit ,  investigata  notavit,  |  scripto  firmavit 
et  alumnis  insinuavit.  ||  Septem  per  studia  docet  artes  philosophia.  \  Haec 
elementorum  scrutatur  et  abdita  rerum.  ||  On  the  inner  circle : — Arte  regens 
omnia  quae  sunt  ego  philosophia  |  subjectas  artes  in  septem  divido  partes. 
Above  the  Seven  Arts  (Grammar  with  scopae),  Per  me  quivis  discit,  vox, 
litter  a,  syllaba ,  quid  sit.  (Rhetoric  with  stilus  and  tabula)  Causarum  vires 
per  me,  rhetor  alme ,  requires.  (Dialectic  with  caput  canis)  Argumenta  sino 
concurrere  more  canino.  (Music  with  organistrum,  cithara  and  lira )  Musica 
sum  late  doctrix  artis  variatae.  (Arithmetic)  Ex  numeris  consto,  quorum 
discrimina  monstro.  (Geometry)  Terrae  mensuras  per  multas  dirigo  curas. 
(Astronomy)  Ex  astris  nomen  traho ,  per  quae  discitur  omen.  In  the  upper 
half  of  the  inner  circle: — Philosophia,  with  her  triple  crown  of  Ethica,  Logica 
and  Physica,  displays  a  band,  bearing  the  inscription : — Omnis  sapient ia  a 
Domino  Deo  est ;  soli  quod  desiderant  facere  possunt  sapientes.  Below  this  are 
the  words  : — Septem  fontes  sapientiae  fluunt  de  philosophia ,  quae  dicuntur 
liberales  artes.  Spiritus  Sanctus  inventor  est  septem  liberalium  artium,  quae 
sunt  Grammatica ,  Rhetorica,  Dialectica ,  Musica,  Arithmetica,  Geometria, 
Astronomia.  In  the  lower  half  of  the  same  circle  and  above  the  philosophi , 


XIV 


LIST  OF  ILLUSTRATIONS. 


Socrates  and  Plato,  runs  the  line: — Naturam  universae  rei  quern  docuit 
Philosophia.  To  the  left  of  Socrates  : — Philo sophi  primum  Ethica,  postea 
Physica ,  deinde  Rhetoricam  docuerunt,  and  to  the  right  of  Plato : — Philosophi 
sapientes  mundi  et  gentium  clerici  fuerunt.  Outside  and  below  the  two  circles 
are  four  Poetae  vel  Magi,  spiritu  immundo  instincti,  with  the  following  ex¬ 
planation: — Isti  immundis  spiritibus  inspirati  scribunt  artem  magicam  et 
poetriam  i.e.  fabulosa  commenta  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  537 

(20)  Altar-piece  by  Francesco  Traini  (1345)  in  the  Church  of  S.  Caterina, 
Pisa.  From  the  ‘  Christ  in  Glory’  a  single  ray  of  light  falls  on  each  of  the  six 
figures  of  Moses  and  St  Paul  and  the  four  Evangelists,  here  represented  as 
bending  forward  from  the  sky,  and  holding  tablets  inscribed  with  passages 
from  the  books  of  the  Scriptures  which  bear  their  names.  In  addition  to  the 
rays  that  proceed  from  each  of  these  figures,  three  from  the  ‘  Christ  in  Glory  ’ 
may  be  seen  descending  on  the  head  of  the  seated  form  of  St  Thomas  Aquinas, 
who  displays  an  open  book  with  the  first  words  of  his  Summa  contra 
Gentiles'. —  Veritatem  meditabitur  guttur  meum ,  el  labia  mea  detestabuntur 
impium  (Proverbs,  viii  7),  while  some  of  his  other  works  are  lying  on  his  lap. 
The  figure  is  stated  by  Vasari  to  have  been  copied  from  a  portrait  lent  by  the 
abbey  of  Fossanuova  (North  of  Terracina),  where  Thomas  Aquinas  died  in 
1274.  Two  other  rays  are  represented  as  coming  from  the  open  books  dis¬ 
played  by  Aristotle  on  the  left  and  Plato  on  the  right,  and  described  by  Vasari 
as  the  Ethics  and  Timaeus  respectively.  Another  ray,  not  a  beam  of  illumina¬ 
tion,  but  a  lightning-flash  of  refutation,  falls  from  the  Summa  contra  Gentiles , 
striking  the  edge  of  a  book  lying  on  the  ground  beside  the  writhing  form  of  its 
author,  Averroes.  Many  other  rays  may  be  seen  descending  from  the  several 
works  of  St  Thomas  on  the  two  crowds  of  admiring  and  adoring  Dominicans 
below.  In  the  original,  among  the  rays  on  the  left,  may  be  read  the  text,  hie 
adinvenit  omnem  viam  disciplinae  (Baruch,  iii  32),  and,  among  those  on  the 
right,  doctor  gentium  in  fide  etveritate  (1  Tim.  ii  7).  Cp.  Vasari,  Vite,  Orgagna , 
ad  fin.,  i  612  f  Milanesi;  Rosini,  Storia  della  Pittura  Italiana  (1840),  ii  86  f,  93 ; 
Renan,  Averroes,  305-84;  Hettner,  Italienische  Studien  (1879),  io2~8  >  and 
Woltmann  and  Woermann,  History  of  Painting,  i  459  E.T.  facing  p.  560 

(21)  Colophon  of  the  ‘Theological  Elements’  of  Proclus,  from  a  xm 

century  copy  of  the  translation  finished  at  Viterbo  by  William  of  Moerbeke, 
18  May,  1268.  Procli  Dyadochi  Lycii ,  Platonici  philosophi ,  elementatio  theo- 
logica  explicit  capitulis  21 1.  Completa  fuit  translatio  hujus  operis  Vilerbii  a 
fratre  G.  de  Morbecoa  ordinis  fratrum  praedicatorum  xv  Kalendas  Junii  Anno 
Domini  M°c°c°  sexagesimo  octauo.  Reproduced  from  a  photograph  taken  from 
the  original  in  Peterhouse  Library ,  Cambridge . 5 66 

(22)  Grammar  and  Priscian,  from  the  figures  of  the  Seven  Liberal  Arts 

and  their  ancient  representatives  in  the  right-hand  doorway  of  the  West  Front 
of  Chartres  Cathedral  .........  645 

For  the  sources  from  which  this  and  certain  of  the  other  cuts  are  derived, 
see  letterpress  under  the  several  cuts. 


TITLES  OF  CERTAIN  WORKS  OF  REFERENCE. 


The  following  list  is  limited  to  those  works  of  reference  which 
are  most  frequently  quoted  in  the  present  volume,  either  by  the 
author’s  name  alone,  or  by  a  much  abbreviated  title.  It  has  no 
pretensions  to  being  a  complete  bibliography  of  the  subject,  or 
indeed  of  any  part  of  it.  The  leading  authorities  on  all  points  of 
importance  are  cited  in  the  notes,  e.g.  on  pp.  504,  640.  For  the 
bibliography  in  general,  the  best  book  of  reference  is  that  of 
Hiibner,  which  is  placed  at  the  head  of  the  list.  In  the  case  of 
literature  later  than  1889,  this  may  be  supplemented  from  other 
sources,  such  as  Bursian’s  Jahresbericht ,  the  Bibliotheca  Philologica 
Classica ,  and  the  summaries  in  the  principal  Classical  periodicals 
of  Europe  or  the  United  States  of  America. 

Hdbner,  E.  Bibliogi'aphie  der  klassischen  Alterthumswissenschaft ; 
Grundriss  zu  Vorlesungen  iiber  die  Geschichte  und  Encyklopddie  der  klassischen 
Philologie,  ed.  2,  8vo,  Berlin,  1889. 


On  the  Athenian ,  Alexandrian  or  Roman  Ages. 

Christ,  W.  Geschichte  der  griechischen  Litteratur  bis  auf  die  Zeit  Jus- 
tinians  (18891,  18902);  ed.  3,  pp.  944;  large  8vo,  Munchen,  1898. 

Croiset.  Histoire  de  la  Litterature  Grecque ,  in  five  vols.  (1887-99),  esp. 
vol.  v  pp.  1 — 314  ( Periode  Alexandrine)  by  Alfred  Croiset;  and  pp.  315 — 1067 
(Periode  Romaine)  by  Maurice  Croiset;  8vo,  Paris,  1899. 

Egger,  L  Essai  sur  V Histoire  de  la  Critique  chez  les  Grecs  (1849); 
ed.  3,  pp.  588;  small  8vo,  Paris,  1887. 

Grafenhan,  A.  Geschichte  der  klassischen  Philologie  im  Alterthum ,  to 
400  A. D. ;  four  vols.,  pp.  1909;  large  8vo,  Bonn,  1843-50. 

NETTLESHIP,  H.  (i)  Lectures  and  Essays  on  subjects  connected  with  Latin 
Literature  and  Scholarship ,  pp.  381;  and  (ii)  Lectures  and  Essays,  pp.  269; 
crown  8vo,  Oxford,  1885-95. 


XVI  TITLES  OF  CERTAIN  WORKS  OF  REFERENCE. 


Saintsbury,  G.  A  History  of  Criticism  and  Literary  Taste  in  Europe 
from  the  earliest  texts  to  the  present  day ,  vol.  I  pp.  xv  +  499  (Classical  and 
Mediaeval  Criticism) ;  8vo,  Edinburgh  and  London,  1900. 

Schanz,  M.  Geschichte  der  Romischen  Litteratur  bis  zum  Gesetzgebung 
des  Kaisers  Justinian ;  two  editions  of  parts  i  and  ii,  in  three  vols.,  and  one  ed. 
of  part  iii,  large  8vo,  ending  (at  present)  with  324  A.D.  Miinchen,  1890 — 1901. 

Steinthal,  H.  Geschichte  der  Sprachwissenschaft  bei  den  Griechen  und 
Romern  (1863),  2  vo^s*  8vo  ed-  2>  Berlin,  1890-1. 

Susemihl,  F.  Geschichte  der  griechisclien  Litteratur  in  der  Ale xandriner- 
zeit ,  two  vols.  8vo,  pp.  907  +  771 ;  Leipzig,  1891-2. 

Teuffel,  W.  S.  History  of  Roman  Literature  (to  about  800  A.  D.),  revised 
and  enlarged  by  L.  Schwabe,  translated  from  the  fifth  German  ed.  (1890)  by 
G.  C.  W.  Warr,  2  vols.  8vo,  pp.  577  +  615;  London  and  Cambridge,  1900. 

On  the  Middle  Ages. 

Bursian,  C.  Geschichte  der  classischen  Philologie  im  Deutschland ,  2  vols. 
8vo,  vol.  I  pp.  1 — 90,  Miinchen,  1883. 

Cramer,  <  Joannes  >  Fredericus.  De  Graecis  Medii  Aevi  Studiis,  sc. 
De  Graecis  per  Occidentem  Studiis  (1)  usque  ad  Carolum  Magnum,  pp.  44; 
(2)  usque  ad  expeditiones  in  Terrain  Sanctam  susceptas,  pp.  65  (the  pages  in 
both  cases  are  those  of  the  complete  editions),  small  4to  pamphlets,  Sundiae 
(Stralsund),  1849-53. 

Ebert,  A.  Geschichte  der  Literatur  des  Mittelalters  im  Abendlande  bis 
zum  Beginne  des  XI  Jahrhunderts\  3  vols.  8vo,  1874-87;  ed.  2  of  vol.  1, 
Leipzig,  1889. 

Gidel,  C.  Les  Etudes  grecques  en  Europe  (fourth  cent. — 1453),  pp*  1 — 
289  of  Nouvelles  Alludes,  8vo,  Paris,  1878. 

Gradenigo,  G.  Ragionamento  Istorico-Critico  intorno  alia  Letteratura 
Greco- Italiana,  pp.  176,  8vo,  Brescia,  1759. 

Graf,  Arturo.  Roma  nella  Memoria  e  nelle  Immaginazioni  del  Medio 
Evo ,  two  vols.  small  8vo;  esp.  vol.  11  153 — 367  (quoted  in  notes  to  pp.  606- 
27);  Torino,  1882-3. 

Haur£au,  B.  La  Philosophie  Scolastique  (1850);  ed.  2,  vols.  I,  and  II 
(parts  i  and  ii),  8vo,  Paris,  1872-80. 

Heeren,  A.  H.  L.  Geschichte  der  classischen  Litteratur  im  Mittelalter, 
2  vols.  small  8vo;  vol.  I,  Book  i,  pp.  10 — 170  (c.  330 — 900A.D.);  Book  ii, 
pp.  171 — 376  (900 — 1400  a. D.),  Gottingen,  1822. 

Histoire  Literaire  de  la  France ,  begun  at  Saint-Germain-des-Pres  by  the 
Benedictines  of  the  Congregation  of  Saint-Maur  (vols.  1 — XII,  1733-63);  and 
continued,  as  the  Hist.  Litteraire  etc.  (vols.  xm — xxxil,  1814-98)  by  the 
Institut  of  France.  (Victor  Le  Clerc’s  survey  of  cent,  xiv  in  vol.  XXIV  1 — 602 
is  quoted  from  the  separate  8vo  ed.  of  1865.)  4to,  Paris,  1733 — 1898. 

Jourdain,  Amable.  Recherches  critiques  sur  I'dge  et  lorigine  des  traduc¬ 
tions  latines  d’Aristote,  et  sur  les  commentaires  grecs  ou  arabes  employes  par 
les  docteurs  scolastiques  (1819);  ed.  2  (Charles  Jourdain),  8vo,  Paris,  1843. 


TITLES  OF  CERTAIN  WORKS  OF  REFERENCE. 


XVll 


KORTING,  G.  Die  Anfdnge  der  Renaissance- litter atur  in  Italien,  nominally 
vol.  Ill  but  really  introductory  to  vols.  i  (Petrarch)  and  n  (Boccaccio)  in  the 
unfinished  Geschichte  der  Litteratur  Italiens  im  Zeitalter  der  Renaissance 
(1878-80);  8vo,  Leipzig,  1884. 

Krumbacher,  K.  Geschichte  der  byzantinischen  Litteratur  von  Justinian 
bis  zmn  Ende  des  Ostromischen  Reiches  (527 — 1453  A. D.),  ed.  1,  pp.  495,  1890; 
ed.  2,  pp.  1193;  large  8vo,  Miinchen,  1897. 

Leyser,  Polycarp  (of  Helmstadt).  Historia  Poetarum  et  Poematum  Medii 
Aevi  (400 — 1400 A.D.),  pp.  1132;  small  8vo,  Halle,  1721  and  (with  new  title- 
page)  1741. 

Maitland,  S.  R.  The  Dark  Ages  (1844),  ed-  35  8vo,  London,  1853. 

Maitre,  Leon.  Les  Ecoles  Episcopates  et  Monastiques  (768 — 1180A.D.); 
8vo,  Paris,  1866. 

Migne,  L’Abbe  J.  P.  Patrologiae  Cursus  Completus ;  Series  Latina;  217 
vols.  royal  8vo,  including  a  large  part  of  the  poetic,  epistolary,  historical  and 
philosophical  (as  well  as  the  ‘  patristic  ’)  Latin  literature  of  the  2000  years  from 
Tertullian  (d.  240)  to  Innocent  III  (d.  1216),  Paris,  1844-55;  followed  by  four 
vols.  of  Indices,  1862-4. 

Monumenta  Germaniae  Historical  folio  series  of  Scriptores  etc,  edited  by 
Pertz  and  others  (Hanover),  1826-91;  continued  in  quarto  series,  the  latter 
including  (for  the  later  Roman  Age)  the  best  editions  of  Ausonius,  Symmachus, 
Sidonius,  and  the  Variae  of  Cassiodorus,  and  (for  the  Middle  Ages)  Gregory 
of  Tours,  the  Letters  of  Gregory  the  Great,  and  the  works  of  Venantius 
Fortunatus,  with  four  vols.  of  Poetae  Latini,  vols.  1  and  11  edited  by  Diimmler, 
Hi  by  Traube,  and  iv  i  by  Winterfeld.  Berlin,  1877-  (in  progress). 

Mullinger,  J.  B.  The  Schools  of  Charles  the  Great  (quoted  mainly  in 
chap,  xxv),  pp.  xx +193;  8vo,  London,  1877. 

Mullinger,  J.  B.  History  of  the  University  of  Cambridge ,  vol.  I,  esp. 
pp.  1 — 212  (containing  the  introductory  chapters  on  the  Middle  Ages); 
pp.  686;  8vo,  Cambridge,  1873. 

Norden,  E.  Die  Antike  Kunstprosa  vom  VI  Jahrhundert  v.  Chr.  bis  in 
die  Zeit  der  Renaissance ;  two  vols.  8vo,  pp.  969;  esp.  pp.  657 — 7 63  ( Das 
Rlittelalter...).  Leipzig,  1898. 

Poole,  Reginald  Lane.  Illustrations  of  the  History  of  Medieval  Thought , 
pp.  376;  8vo,  London,  1884. 

Prantl,  Carl  von.  Geschichte  der  Logik  im  Abendlande ,  esp.  vol.  II  (1861) ; 
ed.  2,  Leipzig,  1885;  four  vols.  Leipzig,  1855-70. 

Rashd  all,  Hastings.  Universities  of  Europe  in  the  Middle  Ages ,  vol.  1, 
and  11  (in  two  Parts);  8vo,  Oxford,  1895. 

Renan,  E.  Averroes  et  V Averroisme  (1852);  ed.  4;  8vo,  pp.  486,  Paris, 
1882. 

1  Rolls  Series' ;  Rerum  Britannicarum  Medii  Aevi  Scriptores ,  or  Chronicles 
and  Memorials  of  Great  Britain  and  Ireland  during  the  Middle  Ages ,  published 
under  the  direction  of  the  Master  of  the  Rolls,  244  vols.  royal  8vo.  The  vols. 
quoted  are  mainly  those  containing  the  works  of  William  of  Malmesbury, 


XV111  ABBREVIATIONS.  ADDENDA  AND  CORRIGENDA. 


Alexander  Neckam,  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  Grosseteste,  Matthew  Paris, 
Roger  Bacon  and  the  ‘Satirical  Latin  Poets  of  cent.  Xii’,  I  and  II.  London, 
1858-96. 

Tiraboschi,  G.  Storia  della  Letteralura  Italiana  1,  Modena,  1772-  ); 
esp.  vols.  in — v  (476-1400  A. D.)  of  ed.  2,  Modena,  1787-94. 

Tougard,  L’Abbe  A.  V Hellenisme  dans  les  Ecrivains  du  Moyen-Age  du 
septibne  au  douzieme  siecle,  pp.  70;  large  8vo,  Paris,  1886. 

Ueberweg,  F.  Grundriss  der  Geschichte  der  Philosophic ,  vol.  1  (1864); 
ed.  8  Heinze,  1894;  E.  T.  London,  1872  etc. 

Wattenbach,  W.  Das  Schriftwesen  irn  Mittelalter  (1871);  ed.  2  (used 
in  this  vol.),  1875;  ed.  3,  Leipzig,  1896. 

Wattenbach,  W.  Deutschlands  Geschichlsquellen  im  Mittelalter,  ending 
c.  1250  (ed.  1,  1858);  ed.  6,  Berlin,  1893-4. 

The  latest  survey  of  Mediaeval  Latin  Literature  from  550  to  1350A.D.  is 
to  be  found  in  Grober’s  Grundriss  der  Romanischen  Philologie ,  ii  97 — 432, 
Strassburg,  1902.  That  of  Italy  is  very  briefly  sketched  in  Gaspary’s  Italian 
Literature ,  i  1 — 49,  E.T.  1901. 


ABBREVIATIONS. 

In  the  notes  and  index  MA  stands  for  Mittel- Alter ,  and  for  Middle  Ages. 

A  smaller  numeral  added  to  that  of  the  volume  or  page,  e.g.,  ii2  or  1234, 
denotes  the  edition  to  which  reference  is  made. 


ADDENDA  AND  CORRIGENDA. 

p.  249  1.  25  and  n.  7;  for  Einsiedlen,  read  Einsiedeln. 

p.  256  n.  3  1.  5 ;  for  1800,  read  1880. 

p.  303,  head-line;  for  aureli,  read  aurelius. 

p.  334  n.  3  (Alexander  of  Aphrodisias  on  Aristotle  De  Sensu ) ;  add  ed. 
Wendland  (1901). 

p.  342  n.  1;  after  Fotheringham,  add  announced,  but  not  yet  published. 

n.  3;  after  E.  H.  Gifford,  add  published  in  1903. 
p.  346  n.  2;  add  Themistius  on  Aristotle,  De  Caelo ,  ed.  Landauer  (1902). 
p.  365  n.  2  (Syrianus  on  the  Metaphysics) ;  add  ed.  Kroll  (1902). 
p.  403  n.  7  (Michael  of  Ephesus);  add,  on  Ethics  v,  ed.  Hayduck  (1901). 
p.  430  col.  4;  add  Ekkehard  II  d.  990;  and,  in  col.  5,  for  651-90  Aidan 
(where  -90  is  accidentally  repeated  from  next  item),  read  651  d.  Aidan. 
p.  462  1.  2;  for  Osnabruck,  read  Osnabrlick,  and  see  Index, 
p.  465  1.  18;  for  (emp.  Lothair)  d.  869,  read  d.  855. 
p.  507  n.  5  1.  3;  for  1817,  read  1819. 


OUTLINE  OF  PRINCIPAL  CONTENTS. 


CHAPTER  I.  Definition  of  ‘Scholar’  and  ‘Scholarship’;  ‘Scholarship’ 
and  ‘  Philology  ’.  <pi\6\oyos ,  ypap-pLariKos,  KpiTiicds.  Modern  ‘  Philology  ’. 
General  plan  of  proposed  work  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  i — 15 

BOOK  I.  THE  ATHENIAN  AGE,  c.  600 — c.  300  B.C.  17—102 

Chronological  Table ,  c.  840 — 300  B.C.  ...  18 

CHAPTER  II.  The  Study  of  Epic  Poetry.  Homer  and  the  rhapsodes. 
Solon,  Peisistratus  and  Hipparchus.  Early  interpolations.  Influence  of 
Homer  on  early  Greek  poets.  Homer  and  the  Sophists.  Allegorical  inter¬ 
pretation  of  Homeric  mythology.  Homer  in  Plato,  Aristophanes  and 
Isocrates.  Quotations  from,  and  early  ‘  editions  ’  of,  Homer.  Aristotle  on 
Homer.  The  Study  of  Plesiod,  Antimachus  and  Choerilus  .  19 — 40 

CHAPTER  III.  The  Study  of  Lyric  Poetry.  Plato  on  the  study  of 
poetry  ;  vase-painting  by  Duris.  ‘  Lyric  ’  and  ‘  melic  ’  poets.  The  study  of 
the  ‘melic’,  elegiac,  and  iambic  poets  .....  41 — 51 

CHAPTER  IV.  The  Study  and  Criticism  of  Dramatic  Poetry.  Literary 
criticism  in  Attic  Comedy.  The  text  of  the  Tragic  Poets.  Quotations  from 
the  dramatists.  Dramatic  criticism  in  Plato  and  Aristotle  .  .  52 — 66 

CHAPTER  V.  The  theory  of  poetry  in  Homer,  Democritus,  Plato  and 
Aristotle.  Aristotle’s  treatise  on  Poetry  .....  67 — 75 

CHAPTER  VI.  The  Rise  of  Rhetoric,  and  the  Study  of  Prose.  Plato’s 
Gorgias  and  Phaedrus.  Aristotle’s  Rhetoric.  Aristotle’s  relations  to  Isocrates 
and  Demosthenes.  Literary  criticism  a  branch  of  Rhetoric.  Place  of  Prose 
in  Athenian  education.  Early  transmission  of  the  works  of  Plato  and 
Aristotle.  Libraries  in  the  Athenian  age  .....  76 — 87 

CHAPTER  VII.  (1)  The  Beginnings  of  Grammar  and  Etymology. 
Early  speculations  on  the  origin  of  language.  Plato’s  Cratylus.  Grammar 
in  Aristotle.  (2)  History  and  Criticism  of  Literature  in  the  Peripatetic 
School.  Theophrastus,  Praxiphanes  and  Demetrius  of  Phaleron  88 — 102 


XX 


OUTLINE  OF  PRINCIPAL  CONTENTS. 


BOOK  II.  THE  ALEXANDRIAN  AGE,  c.  300 — 1  B.C.  103-164 

Chronological  Table ,  300 — 1  B.C.  .  .  .  104 

CHAPTER  VIII.  The  School  of  Alexandria.  The  Library  and  the 
Librarians.  Philetas.  Zenodotus.  Alexander  Aetolus.  Lycophron.  Calli¬ 
machus.  Eratosthenes.  Aristophanes  of  Byzantium.  Aristarchus.  Calli- 
stratus.  Hermippus.  Apollodorus  of  Athens.  Ammonius.  Dionysius  Thrax. 
Tyrannion.  Didymus . .  105 — 143 

CHAPTER  IX.  The  Stoics  and  the  School  of  Pergamon.  The  Grammar 
of  the  Stoics.  The  Pergamene  Library.  Polemon  of  Ilium.  Demetrius  of 
Scepsis.  Crates  of  Mallos.  Pergamon  and  Rome  .  .  .  144 — 164 


BOOK  III.  THE  ROMAN  AGE  OF  LATIN 

SCHOLARSHIP,  c.  168  B.C. — c.  530  A. D.  .  165 — 260 

Chronological  Table ,  300 — 1  B.C.  .  .  .  1 66 

CHAPTER  X.  Latin  Scholarship  from  the  death  of  Ennius  (169  B.C.) 
to  the  Augustan  Age.  Greek  influence  before  169  B.C.  The  battle  of  Pydna 
and  Crates  of  Mallos  (168  B.C.).  Accius.  Lucilius.  Aelius  Stilo.  Varro. 
‘Analogy’  and  ‘Anomaly’  from  Varro  to  Quintilian.  Literary  Criticism  in 
Varro,  Cicero  and  Pollio.  Atticus  and  Tiro.  Nigidius  Figulus.  L.  Ateius 
Praetextatus.  Valerius  Cato.  Grammatical  Terminology.  Literary  Criticism 
in  Horace.  Early  Study  of  Virgil  and  Horace  .  .  .  167 — 185 

Chronological  Table ,  1 — 300  A.  D.  .  .  .  186 

CHAPTER  XI.  Latin  Scholarship  from  the  Augustan  Age  to  300  A. D. 
Hyginus.  Fenestella.  Verrius  Flaccus.  Palaemon.  The  two  Senecas. 
Petronius.  Persius.  Asconius.  Pliny  the  elder.  Probus.  Quintilian. 
Tacitus.  Pliny  the  younger.  Martial.  Juvenal.  Statius.  Suetonius. 
Grammarians.  Fronto.  Gellius.  Terentianus  Maurus.  Pompeius  Festus. 
Aero  and  Porphyrio.  Censorinus  ......  187 — 203 

Chronological  Table ,  300 — 600  A.D.  .  .  .  204 

CHAPTER  XII.  Latin  Scholarship  from  300  to  500  A.D.  Nonius. 
Ausonius.  Paulinus.  Symmachus,  The  Study  of  Virgil.  Victorinus.  Aelius 
Donatus.  Charisius  and  Diomedes.  Servius.  St  Jerome  and  St  Augustine. 
Macrobius.  Martianus  Capella.  Recensions  of  Solinus,  Vegetius  and  Pom- 
ponius  Mela ;  and  abridgement  of  Valerius  Maximus.  Apollinaris  Sidonius. 
Schools  of  learning  in  Gaul.  Grammarians  and  Commentators.  Recension 
of  Virgil  by  Asterius  (494)  .  .  .  .  '  •  •  205 — 236 

CHAPTER  XIII.  Latin  Scholarship  from  500  to  530  a.d.  Boethius. 
Cassiodorus.  Benedict  and  Monte  Cassino.  Priscian  .  .  237 — 260 


OUTLINE  OF  PRINCIPAL  CONTENTS. 


XXI 


BOOK  IV.  THE  ROMAN  AGE  OF  GREEK 

SCHOLARSHIP,  c.  i — c.  530  A. D.  .  261 — 375 

Chronological  Table ,  I — 300  A.D.  .  .  .  262 

CHAPTER  XIV.  Roman  Study  of  Greek  between  164  B.c.  and  14A.D. 
Histories  of  Rome  written  by  Romans  in  Greek.  The  influence  of  Greek 
studies  on  Varro  and  Cicero;  on  Lucretius,  Catullus,  Cinna  and  Varro  Atacinus; 
on  Caesar,  Nepos  and  Sallust;  on  Virgil,  Horace,  Gallus,  Propertius  and 
Ovid;  and  on  Pompeius  Trogus  and  Livy  ....  263 — 272 

CHAPTER  XV.  Greek  Literary  Criticism  in  the  First  Century  of  the 
Empire.  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus.  Caecilius  of  Calacte.  The  Treatise 
on  the  Sublime  ...........  273 — 286 

CHAPTER  XVI.  Verbal  Scholarship  in  the  First  Century  of  the  Empire. 
Juba,  Pamphilus  and  Apion.  Minor  Grammarians  .  .  .  287  —  290 

CHAPTER  XVII.  The  Literary  Revival  at  the  end  of  the  First  Century. 
Dion  Chrysostom.  Plutarch.  Favorinus .  ....  291 — 301 

CHAPTER  XVIII.  Greek  Scholarship  in  the  Second  Century.  Hadrian. 
Herodes  Atticus.  M.  Aurelius.  Arrian  and  other  historians.  Philon  of 
Byblus,  Phlegon  of  Tralles  and  Ptolemaeus  Chennus.  Pausanias.  Literary 
rhetoricians : — Aristides  and  Maximus  Tyrius ;  Lucian  and  Alciphron. 
Technical  rhetoricians: — Aelius  Theon,  Hermogenes  and  Demetrius.  Gram¬ 
marians  : — Apollonius  Dyscolus,  Iierodian  and  Nicanor.  Lexicographers 
and  ‘  Atticists’: — Phrynichus,  Moeris,  Harpocration  and  Pollux.  Hephaestion. 
Symmachus  on  Aristophanes.  Commentators  on  Plato.  Galen.  Sextus 
Empiricus.  Clement  of  Alexandria  ......  302 — 326 

CHAPTER  XIX.  Greek  Scholarship  in  the  Third  Century.  The 
Philostrati  and  Callistratus.  Aelian.  Athenaeus.  Rhetoricians: — Apsines, 
Minucianus,  Menander  and  Longinus.  Diogenes  Laertius.  Alexander  of 
Aphrodisias.  Rise  of  Neo-Platonism.  Origen.  Plotinus  and  Porphyry. 
Aristides  Quintilianus  ........  327 — 338 

Chronological  Table ,  300 — 600 A.D.  .  .  .  340 

CHAPTER  XX.  Greek  Scholarship  in  the  Fourth  Century.  Eusebius. 
Dexippus,  Himerius,  Themistius,  Libanius  and  Julian.  Quintus  Smyrnaeus. 
Theodosius,  Ammonius  and  Helladius  .....  341 — 355 

CHAPTER  XXI.  Greek  Scholarship  from  400  to  530  A.D.  Poets, 
Historians  and  Philosophers.  Hypatia,  Synesius  and  Palladas.  Neo- 
Platonists: — Plutarchus,  Hierocles,  Syrianus,  Proclus,  Hermeias,  Ammonius 
and  Damascius.  The  School  of  Athens  closed  by  Justinian  (529).  Simplicius 
and  Olympiodorus  II.  ‘  Dionysius  the  Areopagite  ’.  Grammarians,  Lexico¬ 
graphers,  Authors  of  Chrestomathies  and  Rhetoricians.  Schools  of  learning 
in  the  East.  The  end  of  the  Roman  Age  (529)  .  .  .  356 — 375 


XXII 


OUTLINE  OF  PRINCIPAL  CONTENTS. 


BOOK  V.  THE  BYZANTINE  AGE, 

c .  530— c.  1350  A.  D.  .  .  .  376  —428 

Chronological  Table ,  600 — 1000  A. D.  .  .  .  378 

CHAPTER  XXII.  Byzantine  Scholai'ship  from  529  to  1000  A. D. 

Period  I  (529 — 641).  Choeroboscus.  Stephanus  of  Alexandria.  The 
Chronicon  Paschale  and  Malalas. 

Period  II  (641 — 850).  John  of  Damascus.  Theognostus.  The  study  of 
Aristotle  among  the  Syrians  and  Arabians. 

Period  III  (850 — 1350).  The  Classics  in  the  Ninth  Century.  Photius  and 
Arethas.  The  encyclopaedias  of  Constantine  Porphyrogenitus.  The  Anthology 
of  Cephalas.  The  lexicon  of  Suidas  .....  379 — 399 

Chronological  Table ,  1000 — c.  1453  A. D.  .  .  400 

CHAPTER  XXIII.  Period  III  continued.  Byzantine  Scholarship,  1000 — 
1350  a. D.  and  after.  Psellus.  Commentators  on  Aristotle.  Etymological  and 
other  Lexicons.  Tzetzes.  Theodorus  Prodromus.  Eustathius.  Gregorius 
Corinthius.  The  Latin  conquest  of  Constantinople  (1204).  Constantinople 
and  the  West.  Scholars  under  the  Palaeologi: — Planudes,  Moschopulus, 
Thomas  Magister,  Triclinius  and  Chrysoloras.  Characteristics  of  Byzantine 
Scholarship.  The  Greek  Classics  in  and  after  Century  ix.  Their  preser¬ 
vation  in  the  Byzantine  Age.  The  Turkish  conquest  of  Constantinople 


(1453) . 401—428 

BOOK  VI.  THE  MIDDLE  AGES  IN  THE  WEST, 

c.  530 — c.  1350  A.D.  .  .  .  429 — 650 


Chronological  Table ,  600 — 1000  A.D.  .  .  .  430 

CHAPTER  XXIV.  Gregory  the  Great.  Gregory  of  Tours.  ‘  Virgilius 
Maro’,  the  Grammarian.  Columban  and  Bobbio;  Gallus  and  St  Gallen. 
Isidore  of  Seville.  Greek  in  Spain,  Gaul,  Italy,  and  Ireland.  Theodore  of 
Tarsus.  Aldhelm.  Bede.  Boniface  and  Fulda  .  .  .  431 — 454 

CHAPTER  XXV.  Charles  the  Great  and  Alcuin.  Theodulfus  of 
Orleans.  The  Irish  monks,  Clement,  Dungal  and  Donatus.  Einhard. 
Rabanus  Maurus.  Walafrid  Strabo.  Servatus  Lupus  and  the  Classics. 
Joannes  Scotus.  Eric  and  Remi  of  Auxerre.  The  Classics  at  Pavia, 
Modena  and  St  Gallen.  ‘The  monk  of  Einsiedeln’.  Ecclesiastical  use 
of  Greek.  Hucbald  and  Abbo  ‘  Cernuus  ’.  Alfred  the  Great  and  his 
translations  ..........  455 — 482 

t  * 

CHAPTER  XXVI.  The  Tenth  Century.  Regino  of  Prlim  and  Ratherius 
of  Liege.  Gesta  Berengarii.  Odo  of  Cluni.  Bruno.  Gunzo.  Hroswitha. 
Hedwig  and  Ekkehard  II.  Walther  of  Speier.  Gerbert,  Fulbert  and  Richer. 
Luitprand.  Abbo  of  Fleury.  /Elfric  of  Eynsham  .  .  .  483 — 495 


OUTLINE  OF  PRINCIPAL  CONTENTS. 


XX111 


Chronological  Table ,  1000 — 1200  A. D. .  .  .  496 

CHAPTER  XXVII.  The  Eleventh  Century.  Chartres,  St  Evroult 
and  Bee.  Bamberg  and  Paderborn.  Lambert  of  Hersfeld  and  Adam  of 
Bremen.  Notker  Labeo  and  Hermannus  ‘  Contractus  ’.  Anselm  of  Bisate. 
Desiderius,  Alfanus  and  Petrus  Damiani.  Greek  in  the  eleventh  century. 
Greek  Lectionary  of  St  Denis.  Dudo  of  St  Quentin.  Carthusians  and 
Cistercians  . . .  497 — 5°3 

CHAPTER  XXVIII.  The  Twelfth  Century.  The  early  Schoolmen  and 
the  Classics.  The  Scholastic  Problem;  Realism  and  Nominalism.  Mediaeval 
knowledge  of  Plato;  and  of  Aristotle  prior  to  1128  a.d.  Lanfranc  and 
Anselm.  Abelard.  Bernard  of  Chartres,  William  of  Conches,  Adelard  of 
Bath,  Gilbert  de  la  Porree.  Otto  of  Freising.  Theodoric  of  Chartres. 
Bernard  Silvester  of  Tours . 504 — 516 

CHAPTER  XXIX.  The  Twelfth  Century  continued.  John  of  .Salisbury. 
Peter  of  Blois.  Giraldus  Cambrensis.  Natives  of  England,  who  wrote 
historical  Latin  Prose  in  Centuries  xn — xiv.  Latin  Verse  in  Centuries 
xil — XIII,  in  Italy,  England,  France  and  Germany.  Greek  in  France, 
Germany,  Italy  and  England  .......  517 — 536 

Chronological  Table ,  1200 — 1400  A.D.  .  538 

CHAPTER  XXX.  The  Thirteenth  Century.  The  new  Aristotle. 
Arabian  and  Jewish  exponents  of  Greek  philosophy.  Latin  translations  from 
the  Arabic.  Early  study  of  Aristotle  in  Paris.  Alexander  of  Hales.  Edmund 
Rich.  William  of  Auvergne.  Grosseteste.  Vincent  of  Beauvais.  Albertus 
Magnus.  Thomas  Aquinas.  William  of  Moerbeke.  Siger  of  Brabant.  Gilles 
de  Paris.  Geoffrey  of  Waterford  ......  539 — 5 66 

CHAPTER  XXXI.  The  Thirteenth  Century  and  after.  (1)  Roger 
Bacon.  Raymundus  Lullius.  Duns  Scotus.  William  Shirwood.  William  of 
Ockham.  Walter  Burley.  Bradwardine.  Richard  of  Bury.  Buridan.  Jean 
de  Jandun.  (2)  Irnerius  and  Accursius  at  Bologna;  Balbi  of  Genoa;  Petrus 
of  Padua.  The  teaching  of  Greek,  and  the  study  of  the  Latin  Aristotle,  in 
Paris.  Precursors  of  the  Renaissance  in  Northern  Italy.  The  Latin  studies 
of  Dante . 5^7 — 593 

CHAPTER  XXXII.  The  mediaeval  copyists  and  the  Classics.  Survival 
of  the  Latin  Classics  in  France,  Germany,  Italy  and  England.  Rise  of  the 
mediaeval  Universities.  Survey  of  the  principal  Latin  Classics  quoted  or 
imitated  in  the  Middle  Ages,  recorded  in  mediaeval  Catalogues,  and  preserved 
in  mediaeval  Manuscripts.  Grammar  in  the  Middle  Ages.  The  study  of  the 
mediaeval  ‘Arts’  versus  the  study  of  the  Classical  Authors.  The  conflict 
between  the  grammatical  and  litei'ary  School  of  Orleans  and  the  logical  School 
of  Paris.  The  Battle  of  the  Seven  Arts  ( c .  1270).  The  prophecy  of  the  author 
of  that  poem  fulfilled  by  the  birth  (in  1304)  of  Petrarch,  the  morning-star  of 
the  Renaissance  ........  594 — 650 


Es  tu  sco laris  ?  Sum.  Quid  est  scolaris?  Est  homo  discens 
virtutes  cum  solicitudine. . . .  Qualis  substantia  est  scolaris  ?  Est 
substantia  animata  sensiiiva  scientiae  et  virtutum  susceptibilis. 

From  Es  tu  scolaris ?,  a  mediaeval 
catechism  of  Grammar  printed  in 
Babler’s  Beitrage  (1885),  pp.  190  f. 


CHAPTER  I. 


INTRODUCTORY. 


The  term  ‘scholar’,  in  its  primary  sense  a  ‘learner’,  is  applied 
in  its  secondary  sense  to  one  who  has  learned 
thoroughly  all  that  ‘  the  school  ’  can  teach  him,  one  ?schoiar’  °f 
who  through  his  early  training  and  his  constant 
self-culture  has  attained  a  certain  maturity  in  precise  and  accurate 
knowledge.  Thus  Shakespeare  says  of  Cardinal  Wolsey  : — ‘  he 
was  a  scholar ,  and  a  ripe  and  good  one’1.  The  term  is  specially 
applied  to  one  who  has  attained  a  high  degree  of  skill  in  the 
mastery  of  language,  as  where  Ruskin  says  in  Sesame  a?id  Lilies  : — 
‘  the  accent,  or  turn  of  expression  of  a  single  sentence,  will  at  once 
mark  a  scholar  It  is  often  still  further  limited  to  one  who  ‘has 
become  familiar  with  all  the  very  best  Greek  and  Latin  authors  ’, 
‘has  not  only  stored  his  memory  with  their  language  and  ideas, 
but  has  had  his  judgment  formed  and  his  taste  corrected  by  living 
intimacy  with  those  ancient  wits’3.  The  true  scholar,  though  in 
no  small  measure  he  necessarily  lives  in  the  past,  will  make  it  his 
constant  aim  to  perpetuate  the  past  for  the  benefit  of  the  present 
and  the  future.  He  will  obey  the  bidding  of  George  Herbert : — 
‘  If  studious,  copie  fair  what  Time  hath  blurr’d  ’4.  Even  if  he  has 
long  been  in  the  position  of  a  teacher  of  others,  he  will  never 
cease  to  be  a  learner  himself ;  his  motto  will  be  discendo  docebis, 
docendo  disces ;  like  the  ‘  Clerk  ’  in  Chaucer’s  Prologue,  ‘  gladly 
wolde  he  lerne,  and  gladly  teche  ’ ;  as  he  advances  in  years,  he 
will  still  endeavour  to  say  with  Solon : — yrjpdo-Ku  8'  aiel  7roAA.d 
SiSacr/co/.uj/os ;  and,  when  he  dies,  he  may  well  be  content  if  his 
brother-scholars  or  his  pupils  pay  him  any  part,  however  small,  of 

1  Henry  VIII ,  IV  ii  51.  2  p.  24  (1888). 

3  Donaldson’s  Classical  Scholarship  and  Classical  Learning ,  1856,  p.  150. 

4  The  Church  Porch ,  xv. 


S. 


V\ 


2 


INTRODUCTORY. 


[CHAP. 


the  honour  paid  to  a  votary  of  learning  by  a  Robert  Browning, 
and  deem  him  not  unworthy  of  A  Grammarian's  Funeral. 

‘  Scholarship  ’  may  be  defined  as  ‘  the  sum  of  the  mental 
attainments  of  a  scholar  \  It  is  sometimes  identified 
« Scholarship0^  4  learning  ’  or  £  erudition  9 ;  but  it  is  often  con¬ 

trasted  with  it.  Nearly  half  a  century  ago  this 
contrast  was  clearly  drawn  by  two  eminent  contemporaries  at 
Oxford  and  Cambridge.  ‘I  maintain,’  says  Donaldson,  ‘that 
not  all  learned  men  are  accomplished  scholars,  though  any  accom¬ 
plished  scholar  may,  if  he  chooses  to  devote  the  time  to  the 
necessary  studies,  become  a  learned  man’1.  ‘It  is  not  a  know¬ 
ledge  ’,  writes  Mark  Pattison,  ‘  but  a  discipline,  that  is  required ; 
not  science,  but  the  scientific  habit ;  not  erudition,  but  scholar¬ 
ship ’2.  ‘Classical  Scholarship’  may  be  described  as  being, 
and  in  the  present  work  is  understood  to  be,  ‘  the  accurate  study 
of  the  language,  literature,  and  art  of  Greece  and  Rome,  and  of 
all  that  they  teach  us  as  to  the  nature  and  the  history  of  man  ’. 

As  compared  with  the  term  ‘philology’,  often  borrowed  in 
English  from  the  languages  of  France  and  Germany, 
the  term  ‘  scholarship  ’  has  the  advantage  of  being  a 
more  distinctively  English  word,  and  of  having  the 
terms  ‘  scholar  ’  and  ‘  scholarly  ’  in  exact  correspondence  with  it, 
whereas  ‘  philology  ’  is  in  England  a  borrowed  word  of  ambiguous 
meaning,  while  ‘philologer’  and  ‘philologist’  are  apt  to  be  used  in 
a  linguistic  sense  alone.  Thus,  Scott  in  the  Antiquary  makes  one 
of  his  characters  say  of  the  question  whether  a  particular  word  is 
Celtic  or  Gothic : — ‘  I  conceive  that  is  a  dispute  which  may  be 
easily  settled  by  philologists ,  if  there  are  any  remains  of  the 
language  ’3.  We  may  also  recall  the  memorable  words  of  Sir 
William  Jones : — ‘  No  philologer  could  examine  the  Sanskrit, 
Greek,  and  Latin  without  believing  them  to  have  sprung  from 
some  common  source  ’4.  ‘  Philologer’  is  hardly  ever  used  in  any 

wider  sense ;  even  in  the  linguistic  sense,  the  word  we  generally 
prefer  is  ‘scholar’.  ‘When  I  speak  contemptuously  of  philology ’, 
says  Ruskin,  ‘  it  might  be  answered  me,  that  I  am  a  bad  scholar  ’5. 


Scholarship 
and  ‘  Philo¬ 
logy  ’ 


1  Classical  Scholarship  and  Classical  Learning ,  p.  149  (1856). 

3  c.  vi  p.  61  of  Centenary  ed. 

5  Modern  Painters ,  IV  xvi  §  28  n. 


2  Essays,  i  425  (written  in  1855). 
4  Works,  iii  34,  ed.  1807. 


SCHOLARSHIP  AND  ‘  PHILOLOGY  \ 


3 


L] 

The  present  confusion  in  the  English  use  of  the  word  ‘  philology  ’ 
may  be  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  in  a  standard  work  bearing  the 
title  of  a  ‘  Manual  of  Comparative  Philology  ’,  the  term  ‘  Philology  ’ 
is  frequently  used  in  the  same  sense  as  ‘  Cotnparative  Philology  ’, 
and  as  a  synonym  for  ‘  the  Science  of  Language  \  The  author,  I 
need  hardly  add,  is  fully  conscious  of  the  confusion  between  the 
English  and  German  senses  of  the  word.  “  In  Germany  ”  (as  he 
justly  observes)  “  the  word  Philologie  means  only  the  body  of 
knowledge  dealing  with  the  literary  side  of  a  language  as  an 
expression  of  the  spirit  and  character  of  a  nation  and  consequently 
the  department  dealing  with  language  as  language  forms  but  a 
subordinate  part  of  this  wide  science.  But  in  England  the  study 
of  language  as  such  has  developed  so  largely  in  comparison  with 
the  wider  science  of  Philology  under  which  it  used  to  rank,  that  it 
has  usurped  for  itself  the  name  of  ‘  Comparative  Philology  ’  and  in 
recent  years  of  ‘  Philology  ’  without  any  limitation  \  Similarly,  in 
the  article  on  ‘  Philology  ’  in  the  latest  edition  of  the  Encyclopaedia 
Britannica  : — “  Philology  is  the  generally  accepted  comprehensive 
name  for  the  study  of  the  word ;  it  designates  that  branch  of 
knowledge  which  deals  with  human  speech,  and  with  all  that 
speech  discloses  as  to  the  nature  and  history  of  man.  Philology 
has  two  principal  divisions,  corresponding  to  the  two  uses  of 
‘  word  ’  or  ‘  speech  ’,  as  signifying  either  what  is  said,  or  the 
language  in  which  it  is  said,  as  either  the  thought  expressed — 
which,  when  recorded,  takes  the  form  of  literature — or  the  instru¬ 
mentality  of  its  expression :  these  divisions  are  the  literary  and 
the  linguistic....  Continental  usage  (especially  German)  tends 
more  strongly  than  English  to  restrict  the  name  ‘  philology  ’  to  ” 
the  literary  sense.  Meanwhile,  in  England,  it  is  unfortunately  the 
fact  that  ‘  philology  ’  and  ‘  comparative  philology  ’  are  constantly 
confounded  with  one  another.  Yet,  some  forty  years  ago,  Max 
Muller  insisted  that  comparative  philology  has  really  nothing  what¬ 
ever  in  common  with  philology  in  the  wider  meaning  of  the  word. 

‘ Philology... is  an  historical  science.  Language  is  here  treated 
simply  as  a  means.  The  classical  scholar  uses  Greek  or  Latin... 
as  a  key  to  the  understanding  of  the  literary  monuments  which 
bygone  ages  have  bequeathed  to  us,  as  a  spell  to  raise  from  the 

1  P.  Giles,  Manual  of  Comparative  Philology,  p.  3  f. 


I — 2 


4 


INTRODUCTORY. 


[CHAP. 


tomb  of  time  the  thoughts  of  great  men  in  different  ages  and 
different  countries,  and  as  a  means  ultimately  to  trace  the  social, 
moral,  intellectual,  and  religious  progress  of  the  human  race.... 
In  co?nparative  philology  the  case  is  totally  different.  In  the 
science  of  language,  languages  are  not  treated  as  a  means ; 
language  itself  becomes  the  sole  object  of  scientific  inquiry’1. 

The  above  reasons  are  sufficient  to  justify  the  choice  of  the 
title  ‘  History  of  Classical  Scholarship  ’  for  a  work  appealing 
primarily  to  students  and  scholars  who,  in  England  or  elsewhere, 
claim  English  as  their  mother-tongue.  But,  whether,  in  this 
connexion,  we  prefer  to  use  the  English  word  ‘  Scholarship  ’, 
or  the  foreign  word  ‘  Philology  ’,  in  either  case  the  history  of  the 
latter  term  is  part  of  the  history  of  our  subject,  and  a  few  pre¬ 
liminary  paragraphs  may  well  be  devoted  to  a  brief  examination 
of  the  ancient  Greek  originals  from  which  that  term  and  also  the 
terms  ‘philologer’,  ‘  grammarian  ’  and  ‘  critic  ’  are  directly  derived. 
The  variations  in  the  meanings  of  the  ancient  terms  themselves, 
as  compared  with  those  of  their  modern  derivatives,  are  not 
uninteresting  or  unimportant. 

The  word  ^nXoXoyia.  has  a  somewhat  varied  history2.  It  is 
first  found  in  Plato,  where  it  means  the  £  love  of  dialectic  ’  or  £  of 
scientific  argument  ’3.  The  corresponding  adjective  cfnX6Xoyo<s  is 
applied  to  £  a  lover  of  discourse  ’4,  as  contrasted  with 
<J>iXoXo*yos  a  < hater  of  discourse’5.  It  is  applied  to  Athens 

as  a  city  ‘fond  of  conversation’,  in  contrast  with  Sparta  and  Crete 
with  their  preference  for  brevity  of  speech6.  Socrates  applies  it  to 
himself  in  a  studiously  ambiguous  sense,  either  £  fond  of  talking  ’, 
or  ‘fond  of  speeches’  (like  those  of  the  orator  Lysias)7.  Else¬ 
where,  when  added  to  <£tAo'o-o<£os,  it  means  a  ‘lover  of  reason’8. 
Thus  its  uses  in  Plato  are  as  varied  as  the  meanings  of  the  word 
Aoyos,  ‘speech’,  ‘discourse’,  ‘conversation’,  ‘argument’,  ‘reason’. 


1  Lectures  on  the  Science  of  Language,  i  24,  ed.  1866. 

2  Lehrs,  De  vocabulis  0i\6Aoyos,  ypap-piariKbs,  tcpiriKbs  (Konigsberg,  1838); 
reprinted  in  Appendix  to  Herodiani  scripta  tria,  p.  379 — 401,  1848;  cp. 
Boeckh,  Encyklopadie . . .der philologischen  Wissenschaften ,  p.  22 — 24. 

3  Theaet.  146  A.  4  ib.  i6ia.  5  Laches  188  c. 

6  La7us  641  E;  cp.  Isocr.  Antid.  296,  where  <pi\o\oyLa  and  evrpaireXia  are 
characteristic  of  Athens. 

7  Phaedrus  236  E.  8  Rep.  582  E. 


I] 


$IA0A0r02. 


5 


Aristotle  describes  the  Spartans  as  having  made  Chilon,  one  of 
the  ‘  Wise  Men  ’  of  Greece,  a  member  of  their  Council,  although 
they  were  ^urra  <fn\o\o yoi,  ‘the  least  literary  of  all  people’1; 
and  in  the  ‘  Aristotelian  ’  writings  we  find  included  under  the 
general  phrase,  ocra  7repi  <f)i\oX.oytav,  questions  of  reading,  rhetoric, 
style  and  history2.  Thus  far,  the  word  has  not  yet  acquired  any 
narrower  signification.  When  Stobaeus  (in  the  fifth  century  of 
our  era)  in  telling  an  anecdote  of  Pericles,  uses  ^iXo'Aoyos  in  one 
of  its  later  senses,  that  of  ‘  educated  ’,  in  contrast  to  ‘  uneducated  ’ 
(a7ra/'8cvro5),  he  is  not  really  quoting  the  language  of  Pericles 
himself,  but  is  only  reflecting  the  usage  of  a  later  age3. 

The  first  to  assume  the  title  of  </uAo'Xoyo9  at  Alexandria  was 
the  learned  and  versatile  scholar,  astronomer,  geographer,  chrono- 
loger,  and  literary  historian,  Eratosthenes  ( c .  276-195  b.c.).  The 
same  title  was  assumed  at  Rome  by  a  friend  of  Sallust  and  Pollio, 
a  Roman  freedman  of  Athenian  birth,  Lucius  Ateius  Praetextatus 
(pi.  86-29  b.c.)4.  The  term  is  applied  by  Plutarch  to  those  who, 
in  reading  poetry,  are  attracted  by  its  beauty  of  expression5.  In 
late  Greek  it  is  mainly  found  in  two  senses  (1)  ‘studious’,  ‘fond 
of  learning  ’,  (2)  ‘  learned  ’,  ‘  accomplished  ’6.  The  first  is  approved 
by  the  Atticist  Phrynichus ;  the  second  is  condemned7. 

The  word  is  frequent  in  the  familiar  Latin  of  Cicero’s  Letters ; 
philologia  is  there  applied  to  the  study  of  literature’8,  and  philo- 
logus  means  ‘learned’  or  ‘literary’9.  Vitruvius  calls  Homer 
poetarum  parens  philologiaeque  omnis  dux ,  ‘  the  father  of  poetry  and 
the  foremost  name  in  all  literature  ’,  and  describes  the  Pergamene 
princes  as  prompted  to  found  their  famous  Library  by  the  delights 

1  Khet.  ii  23,  11.  2  Probl.  xviii,  p.  916  b. 

3  Stobaeus,  70,  17. 

4  Suetonius,  De  Grammaticis,  10. 

5  De  Audiendis  Poetis,  c.  1  r. 

6  Lehrs  l.c.  p.  380,  (1)  eruditionis  amicus,  studio sus ;  (2)  eruditus ,  litte- 

ratus. 

7  p.  483  Rutherford,  <pi\6\oyor  6  \6yovs  xal  airovSd^uu  ire  pi  ircu- 

delav  oi  54  vDv  eiri  4/x.ireipiav  nd^aaiv  obx  dpdCos. 

8  Ad  Att.  ii  17,  1;  (Cicero  filius)  ad  Fam.  xvi  21,  4;  ovp.(pi\o\oyeii'  =  una 
studere ,  ib.  §  8. 

9  Ad  Att.  xiii  12,  3  ;  52,  2;  xv  15,  2  ;  used  as  a  Subst.  in  xv  29,  1  and  ad 
Quint.fr.  ii  10,  3. 


6 


INTRODUCTORY. 


[CHAP. 


of  philologici ,  or  ‘literature’1.  In  Seneca’s  Letters  philologus  is 
contrasted  with  gram??taticus  in  the  lower  sense  of  the  latter :  the 
philologus  (he  observes)  will  notice  points  of  antiquarian  interest ; 
the  grammaticus ,  matters  of  expression2.  Lastly,  in  the  fanciful 
allegory  de  nuptiis  Philologiae  et  Mercurii ,  written  by  Martianus 
Capella  in  the  fifth  century,  the  bride  Philologia  appears  as 
the  goddess  of  speech,  attended  by  seven  bridesmaids  personifying 
the  seven  liberal  Arts.  In  modern  Latin  the  meaning  of  philologus 
had  been  made  much  more  comprehensive.  It  is  now  used  in  the 
sense  of  a  ‘  scholar  ’,  thus  including  all  that  ancient  writers  under¬ 
stood  by  grammaticus  in  the  higher  sense  of  the  term,  and  much 
more  besides, — not  only  a  knowledge  of  the  languages  of  Greece 
and  Rome  but  also  a  knowledge  of  all  that  contributes  to  the 
accurate  understanding  of  their  literature  and  their  art.  Those 
who  in  modern  Latin  are  called  philologi  were  in  ancient  times 
known  either  as  grammatici  (in  its  higher  sense),  or  as  critici. 

Having  briefly  traced  the  history  of  the  word  <fu\6\.oyo$,  we 
may  now  deal  no  less  briefly  with  the  two  terms  which  in  modern 
Latin,  and  in  French  and  German,  it  has  ultimately  superseded, 
the  terms  ypapip,aTiKos  and  KptriKog. 

In  the  golden  age  of  Greek  literature  the  common  meaning  of 
ypafjLfxaTa  is  ‘letters  of  the  alphabet’,  and  ypap,- 
/xari/cos  is  applied  to  one  who  is  familiar  with  those 
letters,  knows  ‘their  number  and  their  nature’3;  one  in  short  who 
has  learnt  to  read4.  In  the  same  age  reg^V  ypa^anKr)  is  simply 
the  art  of  ypdp.p.ara5,  the  art  of  reading6.  Not  in  the  same  age 
only,  but  in  all  later  ages,  ypap.p.anc7T^5  is  a  teacher  of  ypap,p.ara, 
a  teacher  of  reading  and  writing7.  The  Latin  term  corresponding 
to  ypapLp.arL(TTrj<i  is  htterator8. 


■ypa|X[xaTiKos 


1  vii  Praef.  §  8  and  §  4. 

2  Ep.  108  §  29. 

3  Plato,  Philebus  17  b;  cp.  Theaet.  207  b;  Xen.  Mem.  iv  2,  20. 

4  Plato,  Rep.  402  b. 

5  Philebus  18  d,  Cralylus  431  E;  Soph.  253  A;  cp.  17  tCjv  ypapparwv  padt)- 
cris  ( Theaet .  206  a,  207  d;  Protag.  345  a). 

6  Aristotle,  Pol.  1337  b  25  f;  Categ.  c.  9;  Top.  vi  5,  142  b  31  f. 

7  Plato,  Euthydemus  279  E,  wept  ypapp&TWv  ypa(f>rjs  re  /cat  avayvdxreui  oi 
ypappaTiaraL,  cp.  Protag.  326  D,  Laws  812  A. 

8  Suetonius,  De  Grammaticis  4. 


rPAMMATIKOS. 


7 


In  the  earlier  time  ypa^ara  seldom  means  ‘  literature  ’ 1 ;  but 
it  is  to  this  sense  of  the  word  that  we  owe  the  new  meaning  given 
to  its  derivative  ypap.p.aTu<6<;  in  the  Alexandrian  age.  That  new 
meaning  is  a  ‘  student  of  literature  ’,  especially  of  poetical  litera¬ 
ture  ;  and  similarly  ypapcpanKyj  now  comes  to  mean  the  ‘  study  of 
literature  ’,  especially  of  poetry.  ypapi/zaTifoy  in  this  new  sense  of 
the  term  is  sometimes  said  to  have  begun  with  Theagenes  of 
Rhegium  (f.  525  b.c.),  who  was  the  earliest  of  the  allegorical 
interpreters  of  Homer2.  When  Plato  is  described  as  the  first  who 
speculated  on  the  nature  of  ypap.p.aTLKij3,  we  may  assume  that  the 
reference  is  to  the  Cratylus ,  a  dialogue  in  which  he  discusses  the 
nature  of  words.  Aristotle  is  similarly  described  as  the  founder 
of  the  art  of  ypapparLK-tj  in  that  higher  sense  which  implies  the 
learned  study  of  poetic  literature4.  But  this  is  only  the  language 
of  later  writers,  and  we  may  be  sure  that  neither  Theagenes  nor 
Plato  nor  Aristotle  would  have  described  himself  as  ypap,pum/<o's, 
except  in  the  sense  applicable  to  all  who  could  read  and  write. 

The  first  who  was  called  ypap,p,ariKo's  in  the  new  sense  of  the 
term  was  a  pupil  of  Theophrastus,  the  Peripatetic  Praxiphanes  of 
Rhodes  (f.  300  b.c.),  the  author  of  certain  works  on  history  and 
poetry.  According  to  another  tradition,  the  first  who  received 
this  designation  was  Antidorus  of  Cumae,  who  wrote  a  treatise  on 
Homer  and  Hesiod,  and  also  a  work  on  Style,  and  may  be  placed 
very  early  in  the  Alexandrian  age.  After  the  time  of  Antidorus, 
we  find  Eratosthenes  giving  the  title  ypa/xp,ariKa  to  two  of  his 
works,  but  their  contents  are  unknown5.  Dionysius  Thrax  (born 

1  It  seems  to  bear  this  meaning  in  Plato  Apol.  26  D,  airelpovs  y papparuv, 
though  this  is  denied  by  Kaibel  in  Hermes  xxv  (1890)  102  f. 

2  Schol.  on  Dionysius  Thrax,  p.  729,  22,  (ypapparLKT))  apijaptvq  pbv  airo 
Qeaybvovs,  reXeadeiaa  8b  irapa  tuv  HepnrarriTiKCbv  Ylpa^Kpavovs  Kai  ’Apurro- 
reXovs. 

3  Diogenes  Laertius,  iii  25,  irptoros  edewprjae  ttjs  ypapparLKrjs  tt)v  86vap.iv. 

4  Dion  Chrysostom,  Or.  53,  1,  a<p’  06  0curi  ttjv  kpitlktjv  re  Kal  y pappariKTjv 
dpxvv  Xafielv.  Cp.  Susemihl,  Geschichte  der  Gr.  Litt.  in  der  Alexandrinerzeit, 
ii  663—5. 

5  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  Stromateis  i  p.  309,  'AvriSupos  (’A7roX\65wpos  ms) 
6  Kvpaios  irpCoTos  tov  KpLTLKOv  d<rqyr)<TaTO  (irapriTricraTo  Usener)  rovvopa  Kai 
ypapparLKbs  irpo<xriyope6dr}.  Zvioi  8b  ’EpaTocrdtvT]  tov  K vpr\vai'ov  (f>a<nv,  iireiSy] 
il;tS(t)K€ v  oStos  fiifiXia  860,  ypappariKa  eirLypapas.  wvopacrdr)  8b  ypapparLKbs,  ws 
vvv  (c.  200  A.D.)  dvopa^opev,  ttoCjtos  Upai-Mpavris  [c.  300  B.C.). 


8 


INTRODUCTORY. 


[CHAP. 


about  1 66  b.c.),  in  the  earliest  treatise  on  Grammar  now  extant, 
defined  ypa/x/xariKij  as  being  £in  general  the  practical  knowledge 
of  the  usage  of  writers  of  poetry  and  prose  ’  \  He  divided  it  into 
six  parts: — (i)  accurate  reading,  (2)  explanation  of  poetic  figures 
of  speech,  (3)  exposition  of  rare  words  and  of  subject-matter, 
(4)  etymology,  (5)  statement  of  regular  grammatical  forms.  These 
five  parts  form  the  ‘  minor  ’  or  ‘  imperfect ’  art  of  Grammar,  the 
‘  perfect  ’  art  including :  (6)  ‘  the  criticism  of  poetry,  which  is  the 
noblest  part  of  all’2.  A  better  subdivision  gives  us  only  four 
parts,  (1)  correction  of  the  text,  (2)  accurate  reading,  (3)  exposi¬ 
tion,  (4)  criticism3.  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus  twice  describes 
ttjv  ypafXfxaTLKrjv  as  including  the  art  of  reading  and  writing  and 
the  art  of  grammar,  without  extending  its  meaning  to  literary 
criticism 4. 

In  the  Roman  age  the  Alexandrian  meaning  of  ypa/x/xariKo's  is 
noticed  by  Suetonius  who  makes  the  borrowed  word  grammaticus 
synonymous  with  the  Latin  litter atus* .  He  adds  that  Cornelius 
Nepos  agrees  with  this  view,  and  regards  litter ati  and  gratnmatici 
as  equivalent  to  poetarum  interpretes.  Similarly  Cicero  treats 
grammatica  (neuter  plural)  as  synonymous  with  studium  litter  arum* , 
and  includes  in  its  province  poetaruni  pertractatio ,  historiarum 
cognitio ,  verborum  interpretation  pronuntiandi  quidam  sonus7.  Else¬ 
where  he  describes  grammatici  as  interpretes  poetarum 8.  Just  as 
Cicero  identifies  the  science  with  studium  litterarmn ,  so  Quin¬ 
tilian  describes  it  as  sometimes  translated  by  litteratura* ,  and  as 
including  disquisitions  on  style  and  subject-matter,  the  explanation 
of  difficulties  and  the  interpretation  of  poetry10.  He  divides  it 
into  two  parts,  (1)  ‘the  science  of  correct  language’,  (2)  ‘the 

1  epiretpla  ws  cttI  to  1 roXd  tCov  irapa  xonjTals  re  Kal  <rvyypa<ped(n  Xeyo/xtvwi' 
(Iwan  Muller’s  Handbuch  i  130^  1522). 

2  Cp.  Philo  p.  348  B  c  and  462  G;  and  Sext.  Emp.  pp.  224,  226,  quoted 
by  Classen,  De  Gram.  Gr.  pr imordiis,  p.  12  f. 

3  Schol.  on  Dion.  Thrax  in  Bekker’s  Anecd.  736,  {ptpos)  5lop6utlk6v,  av a- 
y pu}(TTLk6v,  £ijr)yr)TU(6i',  kpltlk6v. 

4  De  Deni.  p.  1115  R,  De  Comp.  Verb.  p.  414  Schaefer  (c.  14). 

5  De  Grammaticis  4.  6  De  Or.  i  §  10.  7  ib.  §  187. 

8  De  Div.  i  §  34;  cp.  ib.  116  and  Orator  %  72.  Cp.  ad  Att.  vii  3,  10,  quo- 
niam  grammaticus  es,  si  hoc  mihi  £77777/401  persolveris,  magna  me  molestia  libe- 
raris. 

9  11  i  4.  10  1  ii  14. 


PHILOLOGUS  AND  GRAMMATICUS. 


9 


I-] 

interpretation  of  poetry’1;  the  former,  he  adds,  must  include 
‘correct  writing’,  and  the  latter  must  be  preceded  by  ‘reading 
aloud  with  correctness’.  It  thus  embraces  correct  reading  and 
correct  writing,  and,  beside  these,  criticism,  which  detects  spurious 
lines  or  spurious  works,  and  draws  up  select  lists  of  approved 
authors2.  Seneca,  as  an  adherent  of  the  Stoic  philosophy,  which 
had  paid  special  attention  to  Grammar,  uses  grammaticus  in  a 
somewhat  narrower  sense3.  He  also  compares  the  different  lights 
in  which  Cicero’s  treatise  de  Republica  is  viewed  by  a  philosophus, 
a  philologus  and  a  grammaticus.  While  the  philosophus  wonders 
that  so  much  can  be  argued  on  the  side  contrary  to  that  of 
Justice,  the  philologus  notices  that,  of  two  kings  of  Rome,  the 
father  of  the  one  (Ancus)  and  the  mother  of  the  other  (Numa) 
were  unknown  ;  also  that  Romulus  is  said  to  have  perished  during 
an  eclipse  of  the  sun,  that  the  dictator  was  formerly  called  the 
magister  populi,  and  that  there  was  a  provocatio  ad  populum  even 
in  the  time  of  the  kings,  ‘  as  Fenestella  also  holds  ’.  But  the 
grammaticus  (he  continues)  notices  (i)  verbal  expressions,  such  as 
reapse  for  re  ipsa ,  (2)  changes  in  the  meaning  of  words,  as  the  use 
of  calx  for  creta,  of  opts  pretium  (in  Ennius)  for  operae  pretium , 
(3)  the  phrase  caeli  porta ,  borrowed  by  Ennius  from  Homer,  and 
itself  borrowed  in  turn  by  Virgil4.  Lastly,  when  Aulus  Gellius 
(jl.  150  a.d. )  wished  to  ascertain  the  meaning  of  the  phrase  ex 
iure  manum  consertum,  he  applied  to  a  grammaticus ,  who  professed 
to  expound  Virgil,  Plautus  and  Ennius,  but  (as  it  happened)  was 
quite  unaware  that  this  legal  phrase  was  actually  found  in  Ennius5. 
Thus  it  appears  that,  in  and  after  the  Alexandrian  age,  ypa/x/xa- 
tlko<s  mainly  implied  aptitude  in  the  study  and  interpretation  of 
poetry,  and  ypafx/xaTLKrj  included  not  only  Grammar  but  also  (in 
its  higher  sense)  the  criticism  of  the  poets. 

1  1  iv  2. 

2  I  iv  3,  (iudicium)  quo  quidem  ita  severe  sunt  usi  veteres  grammatici,  ut 
non  versus  modo  censoria  quadam  virgula  notare  et  libros,  qui  falso  viderentur 
inscripti,  tanquam  subditos  summovere  familia  permiserint  sibi,  sed  auctores 
alios  in  ordinem  redegerint,  alios  omnino  exemerint  numero. 

3  Ep.  88  §  3,  grammaticus  circa  curam  sermonis  versatur,  et,  si  latius  eva- 
gari  vult,  circa  historias,  iam  ut  longissime  fines  suos  proferat,  circa  carmina. 

4  Ep.  108  §§  30—34. 

5  Gellius,  xx  10. 


IO 


INTRODUCTORY. 


[CHAP. 


The  Alexandrian  use  of  ypap.p.aTLKo<s  in  the  above  sense  was 
,  apparently  somewhat  later  than  the  use  of  /cpm/co? 

KpiTocos  -n  tke  same  general  sense.  The  word  icpm/co's  is 

found  in  a  pseudo-platonic  dialogue  of  uncertain  date,  in  a  passage 
in  which  the  Greek  boy,  on  reaching  the  age  of  seven,  is  humor¬ 
ously  described  as  ‘suffering  much  at  the  hands  of  tutors  and 
trainers,  and  teachers  of  reading  and  writing  ’  ( ypa/xfiaTio-Tai ),  and 
as  ‘passing,  as  he  grows  up,  under  the  control  of  teachers  of 
mathematics,  tactics  and  criticism’  ( kpltlkol )l.  There  is  reason  to 
believe  that,  just  as  this  use  of  kpltlkol  probably  preceded  that  of 
ypap.pLaTu<oL  in  its  Alexandrian  sense,  similarly  the  term  KpiTiKrj 
was  earlier  than  the  corresponding  term  ypap.p,a.TiK7 ;2. 

Criticism  was  regarded  as  founded  by  Aristotle,  and  among 
its  foremost  representatives  in  the  Alexandrian  and  Pergamene 
age  were  Aristarchus  at  Alexandria  and  Crates  at .  Pergamon3. 
Crates  and  his  pupils  of  the  Pergamene  School  subordinated 
ypapiparLKYj  to  kpltlktj ,  and  preferred  to  be  called  kpltlkol4.  Criti¬ 
cism  was  among  the  higher  functions  of  the  ypa/x/^artKo?.  Thus 
Athenaeus  c.  200  a.d.)  describes  the  authorship  of  certain 
poems  as  a  matter  for  the  critical  judgement  (/cpiVetv)  of  the  best 
ypapip.aTLKOL5  ’  and  Galen  (130-200  a.d.)  wrote  a  treatise  on  the 
question  whether  any  one  could  be  kpltlkos  and  also  ypap,p,aTt/co's, 
implying  a  certain  distinction  between  these  terms. 

Meanwhile,  more  than  two  centuries  before  Galen,  Cicero  in 
one  of  his  letters,  after  alluding  to  Aristarchus,  describes  himself 

1  Axiochus  366  e.  Cp.  P.  Girard,  V Education  Athenienne ,  p.  224 — 7. 

2  Schol.  on  Dionysius  Thrax,  p.  673,  19,  eirLybypamaL  yap  to  irapov  aby- 
ypap-fia  Kara  p.bv  tlv as  rrepl  ypap.p.aTiKrjs,  Kara  8b  hrbpovs  rrepl  KpiTiKijs 
KpiTLKT)  Sb  Xeyerac  ij  rex^V  *K  toO  KaWLarov  pUpov s.  Bekker,  Anecdota ,  p.  1140, 
rb  irpbTtpov  KpiTiKT)  eXbyero  (<7  ypap.p.aTiK'fj),  xai  oi  Tabrrjv  p.en6vTes  KpiriKol.  Cp. 
Usener  in  Susemihl  l.c.  ii  665. 

3  Dion  Chrysostom,  Or.  53,  r,  ’A plarapxos  /cat  Kparyjs  icai  Zrepoi  xXelovs  t&v 
iicrrepov  y  pap.piaTLKu>v  KXrjObvriov,  rrpoTepov  8b  up  itikuv,  Kal  Sr]  Kal  avrbs  b 
’ kpL<XTOT^Xr)s,  a<p'  ov  <pa<n  tt)v  KpiTiK^jv  re  /cat  7 pa  p.p.ar  iktjv  apxyv  Xafieiv. 

4  Sextus  Emp.,  Math,  i  79,  (Kpar^s)  bXeye  Siarpepeiv  rbv  kpitikov  tov  7 pap.- 

p.aTLKOV'  Kal  TOV  ]xbv  KpLTlKOV  TTaCTT]*,  <pT]<Tl,  Set  XoyiKTJS  bTTL<TTT]p.T]S  ZpLTTeipOV  &VaC 
tov  8b  ypap.p.ariKbv  arrXQs  7 XuxnrQv  e^rjyrjTiKbv  Kal  rrpocnpSlas  arroSoTiKOV  ktX., 
and  248,  Taupicr/cos  6  KparrjTos  dKOvaryjs,  oicnrep  ol  &XX01  kpltikoI ,  viroTaaaoiv 
Ttj  KpiTiKrj  T7JV  ypapLpLaTlKTJV  ktX. 

5  p.  116. 


KPITIK02  AND  CRITICUS. 


I  I 


as  about  to  decide,  tamquam  criticus  antiquus,  whether  a  certain 
document  is  genuine  or  spurious1.  The  term  is  also  used  by 
Horace,  in  a  passage  in  which  he  calls  Ennius  an  alter  Homerus, 
ut  critici  dicunt ,  where  Varro  is  probably  meant2.  It  also  occurs 
repeatedly  in  the  Commentary  on  Virgil  by  Servius,  in  the  frequent 
phrase  notant  critici 3.  Lastly,  kpltlkos  is  found  as  a  designation  of 
Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus;  also  of  Munatius  of  Tralles  (the 
tutor  of  Herodes  Atticus)  in  the  second  century,  and  of  Cassius 
Longinus  in  the  third4.  Thus  it  appears  that,  owing  to  a  certain 
ambiguity  in  the  term  ypap,p.o.Ti/<os  with  its  lower  sense  of  ‘  gram¬ 
marian  ’  and  its  higher  sense  of  ‘  scholar  ’,  and  a  corresponding 
ambiguity  in  the  term  ypa/x/xartK-rj  with  its  lower  sense  of  ‘grammar’ 
and  its  higher  sense  of  ‘  scholarly  criticism  ’,  the  term  kpltlkos 
was  generally  applied  to  those  of  the  ypa/xp-anKot  who  excelled  in 
the  higher  branch  of  ypayap,aTt/oj ,  that  of  literary  criticism.  We 
may  conclude  on  the  whole  that  one  who  in  modern  times  is  in 
English  called  a  ‘  scholar  ’,  in  French  a  philologue ,  and  in  German 
a  philolog,  would  in  ancient  times  have  been  called  either  a  grain- 
maticus  or  a  criticus ,  according  to  his  degree  of  distinction,  the 
latter  being  the  higher  term  of  the  two ;  while  the  term  philologus 
in  general  designated  a  lover  of  learning,  or  a  learned  student  of 
varied  accomplishments  and  especially  of  antiquarian  tastes5. 

In  modern  times  the  first  who  called  himself  studiosus  philo- 
logiae  was  F.  A.  Wolf,  the  founder  of  the  modern 
German  school  of  scholarship,  who  thus  described  Philology  ’ 
himself  in  the  matriculation-book  of  the  University 
of  Gottingen  on  8  April  1777,  a  date  which  has  accordingly  been 
designated  as  the  ‘birthday  of  Philology’6.  In  after  years  Wolf 
himself  was  dissatisfied  with  the  term  Philologie  because  its 
Alexandrian  associations  confined  it  to  the  study  of  Literature 
alone,  to  the  exclusion  of  Art,  and  also  because  in  modern  times 
it  was  apt  to  be  regarded  as  synonymous  writh  the  Science  of 

1  ad  Fam.  ix  10,  1.  2  Ep.  II  i  51. 

3  Servius  on  Aen.  i  71,  viii  731,  xi  188  etc.  (ap.  Lehrs  l.c.,  p.  397  note). 

4  Usener  on  Dionysius  Hal.  de  Imitatione  p.  133  note;  and  Lehrs  l.c. 

P-  395-  ^  ' 

5  Lehrs  l.c.  p.  379. 

6  F.  Haase  in  Ersch  und  Gruber,  s.v.  ‘  Philologie,’  p.  383  n.  29. 


12 


INTRODUCTORY. 


[CHAP. 


Language.  He  therefore  preferred  the  term  A Iterthums-wissen- 
schaft ,  ‘the  Science  of  Antiquity’1.  Other  terms  have  been  sug¬ 
gested  at  various  times2,  but  in  France  and  Germany  the  term 
Philologie  still  holds  its  own. 

‘Philology’  was  for  a  long  time  limited  to  linguistic  studies,  and 
was  regarded  as  only  including  grammar,  lexicography,  exegesis, 
and  textual  and  literary  criticism ;  but,  since  the  time  of  Wolf,  it 
has  been  generally  understood  in  a  wider  sense,  as  including  the 
study  of  ancient  life  in  all  its  phases,  as  handed  down  to  us  in  the 
literature,  the  inscriptions,  and  the  monuments,  of  Greece  and 
Rome3.  It  has  thus  been  interpreted  by  scholars  such  as  Ast 
and  Bernhardy,  Boeckh  and  Otfried  Muller,  Ritschl  and  Haase4. 
In  contrast  to  the  comprehensive  definition  given  by  these,  we 
have  the  narrower  view  best  represented  by  Gottfried  Hermann, 
who  saw  in  ‘  Philology  ’  a  science  of  language  alone5. 

The  varied  studies  included  within  the  province  of  ‘Philology’ 
have  been  grouped  and  classified  in  different  ways  by  Wolf  and 
Bernhardy,  Boeckh  and  Muller,  Ritschl,  Reichardt  and  Haase6. 
The  tendency  in  the  later  classifications  of  the  subject  has  been  to 
make  Grammar  not  a  merely  instrumental  means  towards  the 
study  of  ‘Philology’,  but  one  of  the  main  subjects  of  study  in 
itself.  It  has  also  become  increasingly  necessary  to  include 

1  Kleine  Sc  hr  if  ten,  ii  814  f. 

2  e.g.  ‘classical  learning’,  studia  humanitatis ,  and  the  unclassical  term 
humaniora  (criticised  by  Boeckh,  Encyklopadie  der  philologischen  IVissen- 
schaften ,  p.  24  f). 

3  Kleine  Schriften,  ii  826. 

4  Ast,  Grundriss  der  Philologie  (1808)  p.  1 ;  Bernhardy,  Grundlinien  zur 
Encyklopadie  der  Philologie  (1832)  p.  48 — 53;  Boeckh,  Rheinisches  Museum 
(1827)  i  41;  Muller  (1836)  Gottingen  gel.  Anzeiger ,  p.  169;  Ritschl,  Convers.- 
Lexikon ,  s.v.  Philologie  p.  501;  and  Haase  in  Ersch  u.  Gruber  iii  23  p.  390 
(all  quoted  in  Freund’s  Triennium  Philologicum ,  i  p.  5). 

5  Hermann’s  view  was  attacked  by  Boeckh  and  Muller  l.c.  In  the  preface 
to  the  Acta  Societatis  Graecae  he  had  spoken  with  contempt  of  the  Comparative 
Philologists  *qui  ad  Brachmanas  et  Ulphilam  confugiunt  atque  ex  paucis  non 
satis  cognitarum  linguarum  vestigiis  quae  Graecorum  et  Latinorum  verborum 
vis  sit  explanare  conantur’  (cp.  Freund,  pp.  12,  15). 

6  Wolf,  Kleine  Schriften ,  ii  894;  Bernhardy,  Grundlinien ,  p.  xi;  Boeckh, 
Encyklopadie ,  pp.  54 — 64 ;  Muller,  l.c. ;  Ritschl,  l.c. ;  Reichardt,  die  Gliederung 
der  Philologie  (1846);  and  Haase,  l.c.  (transcribed  in  Freund,  l.c.  p.  8 — 14). 


RANGE  OF  MODERN  ‘PHILOLOGY’. 


13 


among  the  introductory  studies,  the  general  and  also  the  compara¬ 
tive  Science  of  Language.  Inscriptions,  which  were  classed  by 
Wolf  under  the  heading  of  Art,  are  now  rightly  regarded  as  part 
of  the  written  records  of  antiquity,  and  as  supplying,  side  by 
side  with  Literature,  part  of  the  documentary  evidence  for  the 
history  and  the  antiquities  of  the  Greek  and  Roman  world1. 

The  history  of  Classical  Scholarship  corresponds  to  the  last 
of  the  four  and  twenty  subdivisions  of  ‘  Philology  ’ 
suggested  by  Wolf ;  and  is  the  first  of  the  studies  cisfsskaf  ° 
introductory  to  ‘  Philology  ’  in  the  scheme  proposed  ScholarshlP 
by  Haase,  and  also  in  that  elaborately  carried  out  in  the  encyclo¬ 
paedic  work  known  as  Iwan  Muller’s  Handbuch  der  klassischen 
Aliertumswissenschaft  (1886  f).  A  knowledge  of  the  general  course 
of  the  history  of  Classical  Scholarship  in  the  past  is  essential  to 
a  complete  understanding  of  its  position  in  the  present  and  its 
prospects  for  the  future.  Such  a  knowledge  is  indispensable  to  the 
student,  and  even  to  the  scholar,  who  desires  to  make  an  intelli¬ 
gent  use  of  the  leading  modern  commentaries  on  classical  authors 
which  necessarily  refer  to  the  labours  of  eminent  scholars  in 
bygone  days.  And  the  study  of  that  history  is  not  without  its 
incidental  points  of  interest,  in  so  far  as  it  touches  on  themes  of 
such  variety,  and  such  importance,  as  the  earliest  speculations  on 
the  origin  of  language,  the  growth  of  literary  and  dramatic  criticism 
at  Athens,  the  learned  labours  of  the  critics  and  grammarians  of 
Alexandria  and  Rome,  and  of  the  lexicographers  of  Constantinople. 
It  also  has  its  points  of  contact  with  the  Scholastic  Philosophy  of 
the  Middle  Ages,  with  the  Revival  of  Learning  and  the  Reforma¬ 
tion  of  Religion,  and  with  the  foundations  of  the  educational 
systems  of  the  foremost  nations  of  the  modern  world. 


The  volume  now  offered  to  the  public  is  the  first  instalment  of 
a  History  of  Classical  Scholarship  from  the  sixth  „  ,  ..  .  . 

J  4  Subdivisions 

century  b.c.  to  the  present  day.  That  history  may  of  the  proposed 
be  most  conveniently  distributed  over  the  following  work 
twelve  divisions  of  the  subject,  but  the  dates  of  the  limits  assigned 
to  each  division  must  be  regarded  as  only  approximate. 

1  Boeckh,  Introd.  to  Corp.  Inscr.  Gr.  vol.  vii. 


INTRODUCTORY. 


[CHAP. 


14 

I.  The  Athenian  Age,  from  600  to  300  b.c. 

II.  The  Alexandrian  Age,  from  300  b.c.  to  the  beginning 
of  the  Christian  era. 

III.  The  Roman  Age  of  Latin  Scholarship,  from  168  b.c.  to 

530  A.D. 

IV.  The  Roman  Age  of  Greek  Scholarship,  from  the  be¬ 

ginning  of  the  Christian  era  to  530  a.d. 

V.  The  Byzantine  Age,  or  the  Middle  Ages  in  the  East, 
from  530  to  1350  a.d. 

VI.  The  Middle  Ages  in  the  West,  from  530  to  1350  a.d. 

VII.  The  Revival  of  Learning  in  Italy  from  1350  a.d.  to  the 
death  of  Leo  X  in  1521,  with  the  subsequent  history 
of  scholarship  in  Italy. 

The  modern  history  of  scholarship  in  (VIII)  France,  (IX) 
Holland,  (X)  England,  (XI)  Germany,  and  (XII)  the  other 
nations  of  Europe  and  the  United  States  of  America. 

The  time  to  be  traversed  will  ultimately  extend  to  as  much 
as  two  thousand  five  hundred  years,  and  in  the  sequence  of  the 
centuries  the  narrative  will  pass  from  one  home  of  learning  to 
another,  from  Athens  to  Alexandria  and  Pergamon,  from  Pergamon 
and  Alexandria  to  Rome,  and  from  Rome  to  Constantinople.  It 
will  also  range  over  the  vast  expanse  of  the  Middle  Ages  in  the 
West,  as  well  as  in  the  East  of  Europe,  pausing  for  a  time  in  Italy 
at  the  date  of  the  death  of  Dante  (1321).  On  some  future  day  it 
may  invite  us  to  visit  the  studious  haunts  of  Petrarch  at  Vaucluse 
and  Arqua;  to  linger  for  a  while  in  Florence  and  in  other 
famous  cities  of  Italy ;  and  then  to  turn  to  the  chief  centres  of 
scholarship  in  the  northern  lands  which  were  successively  reached 
by  the  Revival  of  Learning.  For  three  centuries  of  this  survey  our 
interest  will  be  mainly  fixed  on  Athens,  for  three  on  Alexandria, 
for  more  than  five  on  Rome  ;  then,  for  eight  centuries,  it  will  be 
first  concentrated  on  Constantinople,  and  afterwards  diffused  over 
the  West  of  Europe.  Rather  less  than  six  centuries  will  thus 
await  our  study  at  some  not  far  distant  time.  In  any  future  review 
of  the  period  of  exactly  two  centuries  that  divides  the  death  of 
Dante  from  the  death  of  Leo  X,  our  attention  will  be  almost 
exclusively  confined  to  Italy,  and,  in  the  final  period  of  little  more 
than  380  years,  we  shall  look  forward  to  tracing  the  progress  of 


I.] 


PLAN  OF  THE  PROPOSED  WORK. 


15 


scholarship  in  Italy  and  in  other  lands  from  the  close  of  the 
Italian  Renaissance  down  to  the  present  day. 

In  that  final  period,  even  more  than  in  the  far  earlier  £  Ages  5 
of  the  present  volume,  a  history  of  scholarship  must  necessarily 
to  a  large  extent  consist  of  notices  of  the  lives  and  works  of 
individual  scholars.  In  the  case  of  the  more  important  names, 
some  estimate  of  the  value  of  their  services  will  naturally  be 
expected.  In  the  case  of  names  of  minor  importance,  the  briefest 
mention  must  suffice ;  and,  in  a  work  so  limited  in  compass  as 
compared  with  the  wide  extent  of  the  subject,  many  will  unavoid¬ 
ably  be  omitted  altogether.  Every  endeavour  will  however  be  made 
to  give  accurate  details  as  to  the  dates  connected  with  those  who 
are  mentioned  in  these  pages.  Names  of  special  importance  in 
the  annals  of  literature  or  scholarship  will  also  find  a  place  in  the 
chronological  tables,  in  which  an  attempt  will  be  made  to  give  a 
brief  conspectus  of  the  more  than  nineteen  centuries  over  which 
the  present  volume  extends.  The  reader  may  remember  that  Cicero, 
in  his  Orator ,  tells  us  that  his  friend  Atticus,  in  composing  a 
comprehensive  work  extending  over  seven  centuries,  had  succeeded 
*  by  a  strict  observance  and  specification  of  dates,  without  omitting 
any  notable  event,  in  including  within  the  compass  of  a  single 
volume  the  annals  of  seven  hundred  years’.  Elsewhere  he  makes 
the  author  modestly  ask,  ‘  what  his  work  could  possibly  contain, 
that  was  either  new  or  particularly  useful  to  Cicero’,  and  himself 
vouchsafes  a  reassuring  reply  as  to  its  ‘utility’,  and  as  to  its 
containing  ‘  much  that  was  new  to  him  ’.  I  trust  that  the  reader, 
whether  in  using  the  present  work  he  finds  much  or  little  that  is 
new  to  him,  will  at  any  rate  find  in  its  chronological  tables, 
unpretentious  as  they  are,  the  same  kind  of  utility  that  Cicero 
found  in  the  liber  annalis  of  Atticus  : — id  explicatis  ordinibus 
temporum  uno  in  conspectu  omnia  viderenP. 

1  Cicero,  Orator  120,  Brutus  14  f.  For  a  conspectus  of  the  periods  covered 
by  these  tables,  and  the  pages  on  which  they  will  be  found,  see  p.  xi  supra. 


* 


' 


; 

* 


£  ■ 

. 


.  . 


. 


BOOK  I 

THE  ATHENIAN  AGE 


£vveXwv  Xeyw  tyjv  Traaav  ttoXlv  Trjs  'EAAaSos  7raiSevcnv  tlvai. 

Thucydides,  ii  41  §  1. 


toctovtov  S’  d7r0A.eA.01.7re1/  rj  ttoXls  rjpiov  7rept  to  (frpovetv  kou  Aeyeiv 
rovs  aXXovs  av0pa>7rov<s,  <x>cr6'  ol  Tavrrjs  paOrjral  t<o v  aXXoiV  SiSacrKaXoi 
yeyovao'i,  Kat  to  twv  'E XXrjvuiv  ovop a  TreiroLrjKe  prjKtTL  tov  ytvovs  aXXa 
t rjs  Siavoi'as  Sokclv  tivou,  kcll  paXXov  TjAA^vas  KaXeccrOcu  tovs  rrjs 
7rcu$€vcreu) s  Trjs  yptrepas  rj  tovs  rrjs  KOivrjs  (jrvare 00s  pzriyovTas. 


Isocrates,  Panegyric,  §  50. 


S. 


o 


Conspectus  of  Greek  Literature  &c.,  c.  840 — 300  B.C. 


Epic  Poets 

Lyric  Poets 

Dramatists 

Philosophers 

Historians 

Orators  &c. 

floruit 

c.  840  ?  Homer 
c.  720  ?  Hesiod 
Before  700 
earlier  Cyclic 
Poets,  Stasi- 
nus,  Cypria, 
Arctinus,  Ae- 
thiopis ,  Iliu- 
persis,  and 

Agias,  Nos  to  i 

700 

Intermediate 
Cyclic  Poets; 
c.  660  Lesches, 
Little  Iliad 

c.  645  Peisander 

son 

690  Callinus* 

676  Terpander 
675  Tyrtaeus^ 

657  Aleman 

650  Archilo¬ 
chus  ^ 

625  Semonides 
of  Amorgos* 

620  Mimner- 
musf 

620  Stesichorus 
612  Alcaeus 

612  Sappho 

600  Arion 

1 

Later 

Cyclic  Poets; 
c.  566  Eugam- 
mon,  T 'e le¬ 
go  ni a 

Kflfl 

594  Solon  ei 
c.  639—559 

544  Ibycus 

542  Hipponax* 
540  Theognis'? 
537  Phocylides* 
530  Anacreon 

580  Susarion*7 

536  Thespis 

585  Thales 
c.  624—548 

575  Anaximander 
c.  611—547 

550  Anaximenes 
c.  588—524 

530  Pythagoras 
c.  580 — c.  500 
530  Xenophanes 
c.  576—480 

550  Cadmus  of 
Miletus 

500  Hecataeus 

489  Panyasis 

Antimachus 
fl.  c.  464 — 410 

404  Choerilus 

400 

Simonides  of 
Ceos  556 — 468 
Bacchylides 

fl.  476—452 
Pindar 
c.  522— c.  443 

Epicharmus*7 
540—450 
Phrynichus 
fl.  512—476 
Aeschylus 
525—456 
Sophocles 
495—405 

449  Cratinus*7 
Euripides 
.  480 — -406 

429  Eupolis*7 

429  Phrynichus^ 
Aristophanes  c 

c-  450—385 

500  Heracleitus 

c-  535—475 

495  Parmenides 

455  Empedocles 
450  Anaxagoras 
c.  500 — 428 
Socrates 
469—399 

420  Democritus 
460—357 

Herodotus 
c.  484— c.  425 
430  Hellanicus 
Thucydides 

47i  °r  455— 400 

466  Corax  I 

Tisias 

427  Gorgias 
c.  485 — 380 
Pericles 

493—429 

447  Protagoras 
c.  480 — 41 1 

435  Prodicus 

435  Hippias 

Antiphon 

480 — 41 1 
Thrasymachus 
c.  457 — 4°° 
Andocides 
c.  440—390 
Lysias 
c-  445—378 

Critics 

(525  Theagenes) 

Zo'ilus 

fl-  365—336 

340  Heracleides 
Ponticus 
Chamaeleon 

Praxiphanes 

300 

Musicians 

(676  ?  Terpander) 
(508  Lasus) 
Melanippides 
d.  412 
Philoxenus 
435—38o 
Timotheus 
d-  357 

310  Aristoxenus 

Middle  Comedy 
390 — 320 
Antiphanes*7 
Anaxandrides*7 
Alexis*7 

New  Comedy 
320—250 
Philemon  c 
c.  363 — 263 
Menander*- 
344—292 
Diphilus*7 

400  Antisthenes 

Plato  420 — 348 
Aristotle 
384—322 
Theophrastus 
372 — 287 

Zeno 

c.  350 — 260 
Epicurus 
341—270 

Ctesias 
fl-  415—398 
Xenophon 
c.  434 — c.  359 
360  Cleidemus 
Ephorus 
c.  405—330 

352  Theo- 
pompus 

346  Androtion 
Dicaearchus 
347—287 
Timaeus 
352—256 
Philochorus 
c.  306 — 261 

Isocrates 

436—338 

Isaeus  420 — 348 
Demosthenes 
384—322 
Aeschines 
389—314 
Lycurgus 
fl-  338—326 
Hypereides 
fl  344—322 
Deinarchus 
fl-  342—291 
Demetrius  of 
Phaleron 
fl.  317—307 

e  elegiac ,  *  iambic ,  c  comic  poets. 


CHAPTER  II. 


THE  STUDY  OF  EPIC  POETRY. 


The  earliest  poems  of  Greece  supplied  the  Greeks  with  their 
earliest  themes  for  study,  for  exegesis,  and  for  Homer  and 
literary  criticism.  From  about  600  b.c.  we  have  the  rhapsodes 
definite  proof  of  the  recitation  of  the  Homeric  poems  by  rhap¬ 
sodes  in  many  parts  of  the  Greek  world, — at  Chios,  at  Delos,  at 
Cyprus,  at  Syracuse,  at  Sicyon,  and  in  Attica.  The  recitations  in 
Attica  were  probably  connected  with  the  festivals  of  Dionysus  at 
Athens  and  with  a  similar  festival  at  Brauron 1 ;  and,  by  an  ordi¬ 
nance  of  Solon,  the  date  of  whose  archonship  is 
594  b.c.,  the  rhapsodes  were  required  to  recite  con¬ 
secutive  portions  of  the  Homeric  poems,  instead  of  selecting 
isolated  passages2.  The  effect  of  this  ordinance  would  be  not 


Solon 


1  Clearchus  in  Athen.  vii  1,  rj  tCov  pa\f/cp8(bv  ( eopri} ),  rjv  rjyov  Kara  ttjv  t&v 
Aiovvcriuv.  Hesychius,  Bpavpuvlois  tt)v  TXtdSct  rjdov  pa\j/ip8ol  iv  B pavpCovi  rijs 
’Attikt)s.  Cp.  Welcker,  Der  epische  Cyclus ,  i  p.  391  f;  A.  Mommsen,  Heor- 
tologie,  pp.  122,  138. 

2  Diogenes  Laertius,  Life  of  Solon,  i  2,  57,  r a  re  '0 peripov  ££  vtto^oXtjs 
yky pa<pe  papcpSeiadcu,  olov  tiirov  6  irp&ros  ^Xtj^cv,  iiceWev  Hpx^dai  t6v  ex8p.evov. 
I  here  understand  inropoXrjs  not  as  the  exact  equivalent,  but  as  the  correla¬ 
tive  of  e’£  vi roXr/xf/eus  in  [Plato],  Hipparchus,  228  B  (quoted  on  p.  21),  e£ 
1! itto^oXtjs ,  ‘by  the  giving  of  a  cue’,  referring  to  the  first  of  two  successive 
reciters,  who  ends  at  a  given  cue  and  leaves  the  second  to  take  it  up  (pi ro- 
/3a\\ei),  and  li-  viroXiqpews,  ‘by  the  taking  up  of  a  cue’,  to  the  next  reciter, 
who  takes  up  the  cue  (uiroXap.pavei).  ei ;  viro^oXijs  has  been  much  discussed. 
The  various  interpretations  may  be  stated  thus:  (1)  ‘ se  invicetn  excipiendo ’ 
‘in  continuous  (or  alternate)  succession’  (Wolf,  Boeckh,  Wilamowitz) ; 
(2)  ex  praecepto,  ‘according  to  a  prescribed  rule’,  the  rhapsodes  omitting  what 
they  were  told  to  omit,  but  reciting  the  rest  unaltered  (Nitzsch);  similarly  (3) 
ex  exemplari  praescripto ,  '■ad fidem  exemplaris  probati',  ‘from  an  authorised 


2 — 2 


20 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


merely  to  cause  the  competition  to  be  more  severe,  but  also  to 
promote  on  the  part  of  the  audience,  no  less  than  on  that  of  the 
reciters,  a  more  consecutive  and  more  complete  knowledge  of  the 
contents  of  the  poems  themselves.  Moreover,  the  competitions 
between  rhapsode  and  rhapsode,  like  the  contests  between  poet 
and  poet  in  an  earlier  time,  would  excite  in  the  audience  a  faculty 
for  discriminating  not  only  between  the  competing  reciters  but 
also  between  their  competing  recitations,  and  would  thus  give  an 
early  impulse  to  a  widely  diffused  and  popular  form  of  literary 
criticism. 

The  above  tradition  regarding  the  Athenian  legislator  Solon 
has  its  counterpart  in  a  legend  relating  to  the  Spartan  legislator 
Lycurgus.  The  date  of  Lycurgus  is  uncertain,  one  account 
placing  him  in  776  b  c.,  at  the  beginning  of  the  Olympic  era,  and 
another  a  century  earlier.  According  to  Plutarch1,  Lycurgus  met 
with  the  Homeric  poems  in  Crete,  and  brought  a  copy  back  with 
him  to  Greece.  Plutarch’s  authority  for  this  may  possibly  have 
been  Ephorus,  a  historian  of  the  fourth  century  b.c.  Even  on 

Attic  soil,  Solon  has  a  rival  in  Peisistratus,  whose 

Pcisistrfltus 

rule  at  Athens  began  in  560  and  ended  in  527  b.c. 
According  to  the  well-known  story,  he  is  said  to  have  been  the 
first  to  collect  the  scattered  poems  of  Homer  and  to  arrange  them 
in  order.  The  story  is  not  found  in  any  earlier  author  than 
Cicero,  or  in  any  extant  Greek  writer  earlier  than  Pausanias 
(fl.  174A.D.)2;  but  the  question  whether  it  was  Solon  or  Peisis- 

text  ’  to  be  exactly  followed  by  the  reciter  (Grafenhan,  Gesch.  d.  hi.  Phil,  i 
268 ;  Bernhardy,  Gr.  Litt.  i  3304) ;  (4)  praesente  aliquo  qui  verba  subicerel, 
4 with  prompting’  (Hermann,  Mr  Monro,  and  others),  omitting  olov  otrov — 
top  exoq-epov.  Part  of  the  extensive  literature  of  the  controversy  may  be  seen 
in  Wolf,  Proleg.  c.  xxxii ;  Boeckh,  Corpus  Inscr.  Gr.  ii  6761!;  Nitzsch, 
Quaestio  Homerica  iv  (1828),  De  Hist.  Homeri  ii  132  (1837),  Sagenpoesie , 
p.  413  (1852);  Hermann,  Opusc.  v  300 — 311,  vii  65 — 87  (1834 — 9);  Wila- 
mowitz,  Homerische  Untersuchtingen,  p.  263 — 6  (1884).  Cp.  Ritschl, 
Opusc.  i  56;  Sengebusch,  Piss,  ii  in;  A.  Mommsen,  Heortologie ,  p.  138; 
Bergk,  Gr.  Lit.  i  499,  Christ,  Gr.  Litt.,  §  37s;  Professor  Jebb’s  Homer ,  p.  77; 
and  Mr  Andrew  Lang’s  Homer  and  the  Epic,  p.  36. 

1  Lycurgus ,  c.  4,  discussed  by  Wilamowitz,  Horn.  Uni.  p.  267 — 285. 

2  Cicero,  De  Or.  iii  137,  qui  primus  Homeri  libros,  confusos  antea,  sic 
disposuisse  dicitur,  ut  nunc  habemus;  Pausanias,  vii  26,  WeiaiaT paros  ^m\  ra 
'Ofxrjpov  dieo-iracr/uLtra  re  Kai  (LWa  aWaxov  p.prjp.opev6p.eva  rjdpolfeTO.  Cp.  Wolf’s 


II.] 


HOMER  AND  THE  RHAPSODES. 


21 


tratus  who  did  a  signal  service  to  the  Homeric  poems  was  appa¬ 
rently  familiar  to  a  Megarian  historian  of  the  fourth  century  b.c.1 
The  story  about  Peisistratus,  it  need  hardly  be  added,  has  been 
much  discussed.  Accepted  unreservedly  by  some  eminent  scholars 
and  rejected  entirely  by  others,  it  has  sometimes  been  accepted  in 
a  limited  sense  by  those  who  hold  that  the  story  need  only  imply 
the  restoration  of  a  unity  which  in  process  of  time  had  been 
gradually  ignored2.  The  festival  of  the  Panathenaea,  at  which 
the  Homeric  poems  were  in  after  times  usually  recited3,  was  cele¬ 
brated  with  special  splendour  by  Peisistratus,  who  is  even  some¬ 
times  called  the  founder  of  the  festival4 ;  and,  according  to  a 
dialogue  attributed  to  Plato,  it  was  one  of  the  sons  of  Peisistratus, 
namely  Hipparchus  (527-514  b.c.),  who  ‘was  the 
first  to  bring  into  this  land  the  poems  of  Homer, 
and  who  compelled  the  rhapsodes  to  recite  them  successively,  in 
regular  order,  at  the  Panathenaea,  as  they  still  do  at  the  present 
day’ 5.  The  story  is  inconsistent  with  the  statement  that  the  poems 
of  Homer  were  recited  at  Athens  in  the  time  of  Solon,  but  it  is 
possibly  true  that  the  recitations  at  the  Panathenaea  in  particular 

Prolegofnena  c.  xxxiii ;  Egger,  Histoire  de  la  Critique  (ed.  1887),  pp.  9 — 18; 
Wilamowitz,  l.  c.,  pp.  235 — 266;  and  Flach’s  Peisistratos  und  seine  litterarische 
Thdtigkeit  (1885);  also  Tebb’s  Homer ,  p.  114,  A.  Lang,  Homer  and  the 
Epic ,  p.  37,  and  T.  W.  Allen  in  Classical  Review,  xv  (190T)  p.  7  f . 

1  Diogenes  Laertius,  i  2,  57,  p.aWov  odv  '2i6\wv"Op.T]pov  e(pJ}Ti.aev  rj  Ileccrio-- 
rparos,  <Dr  Leaf,  Iliad ,  1900,  p.  xviii,  here  inserts  eKeivos  yap  rjv  6  r a  £ irp  eh 
rbv  KardXoyov  iparoiriaas  Kal  oi>  UeiaiarpaTos,  >  cos  (prjai  Aievx^as  ev  7r^cc7rry 
Meyapudov.  On  the  date  of  Dieuchidas,  cp.  Wilamowitz,  l.  c.,  p.  240  f. 

2  Jebb’s  Ho?ner  pp.  114  f.  It  is  accepted  in  this  sense  by  Ritschl,  but 
rejected  altogether  by  Ludwich,  Wilamowitz  and  Flach.  It  had  been  accepted 
by  Wolf  and  Lachmann,  both  of  whom  regard  the  written  Homer  as  dating 
from  Peisistratus.  This  view  has  recently  been  gaining  ground.  Dr  Leaf 
(/.  c.  p.  xix)  now  believes  that  ‘  an  official  copy  of  Homer  was  made  in  Athens 
in  the  time  of  Solon  and  Peisistratus  \ 

3  Lycurgus  c.  Leocr.  102,  ourco  yap  virlXafiov  vfxCov  oi  irarlpes  airovdaiov 
elvai  TroirjTrjv,  c ocrre  v6p.ov  Zdevro  Kad'  eKdar'qv  Trevrerriplda  p,6vov  t&v  aXAcoj/ 

papipbeladai  ra  girt]. 

4  Scholiast  on  Aristeides  Panath.  p.  323  Dindorf.  The  athletic  contests 
of  the  Great  Panathenaea  had  however  been  instituted  in  566  B.c.  (Busolt,  Gr. 
Gesch.  ii2  344),  six  years  before  Peisistratus  became  tyrant. 

5  [Plato],  Hipparchus  228  D,  rjvayKaae  roi>s  papipdovs  IlavadrjpaLois  e£ 
viroXifipeus  i<pei;r)s  aira  dulvai.  Cp.  note  2  on  p.  19. 


22 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


were  introduced  by  Hipparchus.  It  was  on  the  invitation  of 
Hipparchus1  that  Simonides  of  Ceos  lived  at  Athens  from  about 
522  to  514  b.c.,  and  it  is  interesting  to  notice  that  it  is  in 
Simonides  that  we  find  the  earliest  extant  quotation  from  Homer 
in  a  line  which  he  ascribes  to  ‘  the  man  of  Chios  ’, — obrj-n-ep  <f>v AAwv 


yeveij,  roiySe  kcll  dj/Spwv2. 

There  are  some  dubious  stories  of  early  interpolations  in  the 
Early  inter-  Homeric  poems.  Thus  Peisistratus  is  said  to  have 
poiations  introduced  into  the  Odyssey  a  line  in  honour  of  the 

Attic  hero,  Theseus3 ;  and  both  Solon  and  Peisistratus  are  credited 
with  the  insertion  of  a  line  referring  to  Ajax,  for  the  supposed 
purpose  of  proving  that  Salamis  was  an  ancient  possession  of 
Athens4;  but,  as  the  recovery  of  Salamis  took  place  in  Solon’s 
time,  while  Peisistratus  was  still  a  boy,  Solon  alone  should  have 
been  mentioned  in  this  connexion5.  Onomacritus,  who  is  said  to 
have  been  one  of  the  four  who  put  together  the  Homeric  poems 
under  the  authority  of  Peisistratus6,  was,  according  to  Herodotus, 
caught  in  the  act  of  interpolating  the  oracles  of  Musaeus,  and  was 
banished  by  the  tyrant’s  son,  Hipparchus7. 

Meanwhile,  Homer  had  been  frequently  imitated  by  Hesiod 
(fl.  c.  720?  b.c.),  had  been  described  by  the  early 
HomeTon6  °f  elegiac  poet  Callinus  {c.  690)  as  the  author  of  an 
early  Greek  epic  called  the  Thebais8,  and  had  been  copied  in 
various  ways  by  the  earliest  of  the  iambographers, 
Archilochus  (JZ.  650),  whom  ‘Longinus’  (c.  13  §  3)  describes  as 


1  ib.  228  c,  and  Aristotle’s  Constitutiojt  of  Athens ,  c.  18  §  1,  where 
Hipparchus  is  also  called  (fnXdnovaos. 

2  Iliad  vi  148. 

3  Od.  xi  631,  Qrjata  Uetpidoov  re,  de&v  epiKvdta  t£kvo..  Plutarch,  Theseus 
20;  cp.  Flach,  p.  27. 

4  II.  ii  558,  (TTTjcre  d’  dyuv,  tv'  ' Adrjvaiwv  'icrravTO  <p&\a yyes.  Strabo, 
p.  394;  cp.  Flach,  p.  29. 

5  Cp.  Diog.  Laert.  i  2,  57,  and  see  Busolt,  Gr.  Gesch.  ii2  220. 

6  Tzetzes,  Proleg.  in  Aidstoph.  reacrapoiv  ovtiov  <tCov>  iirl  HeKncrTparou 
ffvvdtvTu) v  t'ov  "OpLTjpou.  Cp.  La  Roche,  Horn.  Textkr.  p.  10,  and  Jebb’s  Homer 
p.  11511. 

7  Her.  vii  6. 

8  Pausanias  ix  9,  5. 


II.] 


HOMER  AND  PINDAR. 


23 


‘most  Homeric’,  and  by  melic  poets  such  as  Aleman  (about  657), 
and  Stesichorus  (640-5  5  5)  \ 

In  the  age  succeeding  the  expulsion  of  the  Peisistratidae, 
Pindar,  with  a  conscious  reference  to  the  origin  of 

Pindar 

the  word  Rhapsodos1  2,  describes  the  Rhapsodes  as 
‘the  sons  of  Homer,  singers  of  deftly  woven  lays’3.  He  also 
alludes  to  the  laurel-branch  that  they  bore  as  an  emblem  of  poetic 
tradition.  Homer  himself  (he  tells  us)  had  ‘rightly  set  forth  all 
the  prowess  of  Ajax,  leaving  it  as  a  theme  for  other  bards  to  sing, 
by  the  laurel-wand  of  his  lays  divine’4.  Pindar’s  praise  of  Amphi- 
araus  is  a  clear  reminiscence  of  a  Homeric  line  in  praise  of 
Agamemnon5.  He  describes  the  ‘  fire-breathing  Chimaera  ’  in  a 
phrase  like  that  of  Homer6,  but  differs  from  him  in  minor  details 
as  to  Bellerophon,  Ganymede  and  Tantalus7.  He  shows  a  similar 
freedom  in  giving  a  new  meaning  to  a  phrase  borrowed  from  his 
own  countryman  the  Boeotian  poet,  Hesiod,  by  applying  to  the 
athlete’s  toilsome  training  a  proverbial  admonition  originally 
referring  to  the  work  of  the  farm8.  In  the  age  of  Pindar,  and  in 
the  Athenian  age  in  general,  the  poet  and  his  audience  were  alike 
saturated  with  the  study  of  the  old  poets,  Homer  and  Hesiod,  and 
a  touch  alone  was  wanted  to  awaken  the  memory  of  some  long- 
familiar  line. 


1  Mahaffy,  Gr.  Lit.  i  31,  cp.  for  Hesiod,  Christ,  §  65s ;  for  Archilochus 
and  Stesichorus,  Bergk  ii  191  and  293,  and  (in  general)  i  483. 

2  pa\J/(p5o$,  from  pairreiv  doibiqv  (Hesiod,  frag.  221),  contexere  carmen,  pan- 
%ere  versus.  Cp.  Bergk,  Gr.  Lit.  i  490. 

3  Nem.  ii  1,'OfirjpLbai,  pairTwv  (lit.  ‘stitched’)  eirluv  aoidol. 

4  Isth.  iii  55,  "Opn]pos...Tra(rav  dpdwacus  aperdv  Kara  pafibov  Hcfrpaaev  dearre- 
<rlwv  iirtuv  Xonrois  addpeiv.  Cp.  Bergk,  Gr.  Lit.  i  492. 

5  01.  vi  17,  dfAtporepov  /xavriv  r  ay adbv  nai  dovpi  fidpvaadai,  and  Iliad  iii 
179,  aiKporepov,  fiacriketis  t  ayadbs  Kparepbs  r  alx/ar)Tr)s.  The  reminiscence  is 
far  less  clearly  marked  when  he  says  that  Homer  ayyeXov  eaXbv  2(pa  rip.av 
ixeylarav  wpay/aaTi  xavrl  (plpetv  ( Pyth .  iv  278),  a  phrase  which  has  no  nearer 
parallel  in  our  own  Homer  than  the  line,—  eadkov  /cat  rb  Tirvurai  or’  dyyekos 
atat/ta  dSrj  ( Iliad  xv  207). 

6  Pindar,  01.  xiii  90  and  II.  vi  182. 

7  01.  xiii  67  (Gildersleeve’s  n.):  i  43,  57  (Fennell’s  n.). 

8  Isth.  v  67,  /xeklrau  Zpyois  oirafav,  and  Hesiod,  Works  and  Days  41 1,  p.e- 
Xlrr}  rot  Zpyov  6(f>lXXet. 


24 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


The  Tragic 
poets 


The  influence  of  the  Homeric  poems  on  the  tragic  poets  of 
Athens  was  very  considerable.  Notwithstanding 
Aristotle’s  statement  that  ‘  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey 
each  furnish  the  theme  of  one  tragedy,  or  of  two, 
at  the  most’1,  we  find  that  they  supplied  Aeschylus  with  the  theme 
of  at  least  six  tragedies  and  one  satyric  drama,  Sophocles  with 
that  of  three  tragedies  ( Nausicaa ,  and  the  Phaeacians ,  and  possibly 
the  Phrygians ),  and  Euripides  with  that  of  one  satyric  drama,  the 
Cyclops.  The  unknown  author  of  the  Rhesus  derived  his  theme 
from  the  Iliad ;  and  Achilles  and  Hector,  with  Laertes,  Penelope 
and  her  Suitors,  were  among  the  themes  of  the  minor  tragic  poets 
of  the  fifth  and  fourth  centuries.  Aristotle’s  statement  is  practi¬ 
cally  true  of  Sophocles  and  Euripides,  but  not  of  Aeschylus, 
whom  he  almost  ignores  in  his  treatise  on  Poetry.  It  is  however 
the  fact  that,  among  the  tragic  poets  in  general,  a  far  larger 
number  of  their  subjects  were  suggested  by  other  poems  of  the 
Epic  Cycle,  namely  the  Cypria ,  the  Aethiopis,  the  Little  Iliad, 
the  Iliupersis ,  the  Nostoi  and  the  lelegonia2. 

Aeschylus  himself  probably  regarded  ‘  Homer  ’  as  the  author 
of  all  the  poems  of  the  Epic  Cycle,  when  he 
described  his  dramas  as  ‘  slices  from  the  great 
banquets  of  Homer3’.  In  the  Frogs  of  Aristophanes,  he  is  made 
to  confess  that  it  was  from  ‘  Homer  the  divine  ’  that  his  mind 
took  the  impress  of  noble  characters  like  those  of  the  ‘  lion-hearted’ 
heroes,  Teucer  and  Patroclus4.  The  influence  of  Homer  shows 
itself  in  many  of  his  picturesque  epithets,  and  in  the  use  of  not  a 
few  archaic  nouns  and  verbs,  as  well  as  in  Homeric  phrases  and 
expressions,  and  Homeric  similes  and  metaphors5. 

Sophocles  is  described  by  Greek  critics  as  the  only  true 
disciple  of  Homer,  as  the  ‘tragic  Homer’,  and  as 
the  admirer  of  the  Epic  poet6.  His  verbal  indebt- 


Aeschylus 


Sophocles 


1  Poet.  23  §  4. 

2  See  Nauck,  Tragi  corum  Graecorum  Pragmenta,  pp.  963 — 8,  or  Haigh, 
Tragic  Drama  of  the  Greeks ,  p.  473 — 6. 

3  Athen.  347  E,  tc/j, &xv  rQu'Ofiripov  /meyaXiov  SeLirvcju. 

4  Frogs ,  1040. 

6  For  details,  see  Haigh,  l.c.  p.  85. 

6  Ion,  in  vita  Sophoclis ,  p.ovov  ...'Op.r)pov  p.adrjTr]v.  Polemo,  ap.  Diog. 
Laert.  iv  20,  "Op,r]pov  rpayiKdv.  Eustathius  on  Iliad,  pp.  440,  605,  851,  902 


II.] 


HOMER  AND  THE  TRAGIC  POETS. 


25 


Euripides 


edness  to  Homer  is  less  than  that  of  Aeschylus,  though,  like 
other  dramatists,  he  borrows  certain  epic  forms  and  epithets,  as 
well  as  certain  phrases  and  similes.  His  dramas  reproduce  the 
Homeric  spirit.  He  is  also  Homeric  in  the  ideal,  yet  human, 
conception  of  his  characters  ‘,  and  in  the  calm  self-control,  which 
characterises  him  even  in  scenes  of  violent  excitement.  Here,  as 
elsewhere,  ‘  he  has  caught  the  impress  of  Homer’s  charm  ’ 2. 
While  very  few  of  his  dramas  were  directly  suggested  by  the  Iliad 
or  Odyssey,  he  is  described  as  ‘  delighting  in  the  Epic  Cycle  ’ 3. 
The  extant  plays  connected  with  that  Cycle  are  the  Ajax  and 
Philoctetes. 

Of  the  extant  plays  of  Euripides,  the  Cyclops  alone  is  directly 
taken  from  Homer’s  Odyssey,  while  the  Epic  Cycle 
is  represented  by  the  Iphigeneia  in  Aulide,  Hecuba , 

Troades,  Andromache,  Helen,  Electra,  Iphigeneia  in  Tauris  and 
Orestes.  The  plot  of  no  extant  play  that  was  certainly  written  by 
Euripides  is  inspired  by  the  Iliad,  but  the  opening  scene  of  the 
Phoenissae,  where  Antigone  and  her  aged  attendant  view  from  the 
palace-roof  the  movements  of  the  Argive  host  outside  the  walls  of 
Thebes,  is  clearly  a  reminiscence  of  the  memorable  scene  in  the 
Iliad,  where  Helen  and  Priam  watch  the  Greek  heroes  from  the 
walls  of  Troy4. 

Turning  from  the  tragic  poets  to  the  historians,  we  fijid 
Herodotus  speculating  on  the  date  of  Homer.  He 
places  Hesiod,  as  well  as  Homer,  about  four  hun¬ 
dred  years  before  his  own  time,  i.e.  about  400  years  (or  exactly 
12  generations)  before  430  b.c.5  He  assumes  that  other  poems 
beside  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey  were  generally  attributed  to  Homer, 
namely  the  Cypria  and  the  Epigoni.  He  doubts  the  Homeric 
authorship  of  the  Epigoni6,  and  denies  that  of  the  Cypria1  \  but 


Herodotus 


etc.,  <pi\6pr]pos.  Cp.  Lechner,  De  Sophocle  poeta  'OprjpiKojT&TLp  (1859)  >  Schnei- 
dewin’s  Sophokles  p.  27;  Bergk,  Gr.  Litt.  i  830,  iii  369  f;  and  Haigh,  l.c., 
p.  202  f. 

1  Arist.  Poet.  3  §  2. 

2  Vita  Soph.  'OpripiKpv  eKp.aTT6p.evos  x^PLV’ 

3  Athen.  297  D,  £ xaLP€---T(p  eiriKtp  KVK\(p.  Cp.  Christ,  Gr.  Litt.  §  175  p.  2503. 

4  II.  iii  139 — 244. 

5  Her.  ii  53.  6  Her.  iv  32. 

7  Her.  ii  117. 


2  6 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Thucydides 


his  denial  of  the  latter  is  founded  on  the  fact  that,  in  the  form  in 
which  he  knew  the  poem,  it  implied  that  Paris,  on  leaving  Sparta, 
sailed  for  Troy,  and  not  for  Sidon  as  stated  in  the  Iliad'.  As 
Professor  Jebb  has  aptly  observed,  ‘this  suggests  how  little  these 
attributions  probably  regarded  the  evidence  of  style,  language,  or 
spirit.  Unless  there  was  some  contradiction  on  the  surface,  the 
attribution  could  pass  current,  or  could  be  left  an  open  question’1 2. 

Thucydides  regards  the  Phaeacians  as  a  historical  people  and 
the  Homeric  catalogue  as  a  historical  document3. 
But  he  makes  the  story  of  the  siege  of  Troy  a 
theme  for  rationalising  criticism.  In  this  spirit  he  suggests  that 
the  Greek  chiefs  were  compelled  to  go  to  Troy,  not  by  the  obliga¬ 
tions  of  their  oath  to  Helen’s  father,  but  by  the  superior  power  of 
Agamemnon ;  and  that  the  long  duration  of  the  siege  was  due  to 
the  Greeks  being  forced  to  spend  part  of  their  time  in  keeping  up 
their  supply  of  provisions4.  In  a  far  different  spirit  to  that  of  the 
earlier  age  which  interpolated  lines  in  Homer  to  the  credit  of 
Athens,  he  makes  Pericles  proudly  declare  in  his  funeral  oration 
that  Athens  needs  no  Homer  to  praise  her5. 

Among  the  earliest  treatises  on  Homer  was  that  ascribed  to 
Democritus  (460-357  b.c.),  though  we  know  nothing 
of  its  purport6.  But,  if  he  really  wrote  such  a  work, 
it  may  have  contained  some  of  the  sayings  on  Homer  attributed 
to  him  by  later  writers,  who  quote  Democritus  as  speaking  of 
Homer’s  divine  genius,  the  varied  beauty  of  his  epic  verse,  and 
the  happy  union  of  order  and  variety  which  marked  the  com¬ 
position  of  his  poems7.  It  was  possibly  his  study  of  Homer  that 
inspired  him  with  the  lofty  and  often  poetical  language  for  which 
he  is  eulogised  by  Cicero8. 

For  the  three  centuries  between  600  and  300  b.c.  the  Homeric 


Democritus 


1  II.  vi  290.  2  Homer,  p.  86.  3  ib.  p.  85. 

4  Thuc.  i  9  and  n.  5  ii  41,  4. 

6  Diog.  Laert.  IX  vii  13  §  48,  7 repl  ' Ofirjpov  rj( ?)  dpdoeTelrjs  Kal  yXcbaaewp. 

Cp.  Egger,  l.c.,  p.  1073,  and  Saintsbury’s  History  of  Criticism,  i  15. 

7  Dion  Chrysostom,  Or.  53  init.,  "O/JLrjpos  (pbtreojs  Xax&p  deafovcrrjs  errtwv 

k6<t/xop  &t£kt7)p<xto  ttciptoIup’  ws  oihc  evbv  &p(v  delas  Kal  8aip.orLas  (pbcrem  oDtoj 

kciXcl  Kal  <ro<pa  Hrj  tpyaoaadai,  and  Clemens  Alexandrinus,  Stromat.  vi  18. 

8  De  Or.  i  49;  Orator  67. 


II.] 


HOMER  AND  THE  SOPHISTS. 


27 


Protagoras 


poems  were  the  subject  of  a  considerable  amount  of  uncritical 
study.  Homer  was  ‘  the  educator  of  Hellas’1;  and, 
during  the  fifth  century  b.c.,  the  Sophists,  who  th?s™phistsd 
were  among  the  most  active  educators  of  their 
age,  had  naturally  much  to  say  of  one  whose  poems  formed  the 
foundation  of  all  education  at  Athens.  Thus  Pro¬ 
tagoras  (c.  480-411  b.c.),  who  classified  the  modes 
of  expression  under  the  heads  of  question,  answer,  prayer  and 
command,  ventured  to  criticise  the  opening  words  of  the  Iliad , 
for  expressing  what  was  meant  as  a  prayer  to  the  Muse  in  the 
form  of  a  command,  /xrjviv  actSe  Oca ;  but  Aristotle,  who  quotes  this 
criticism,  justly  observes  that  it  is  not  of  any  special  value  as 
applied  to  poetry2.  A  specimen  of  his  criticism  of  Simonides  is 
given  in  the  Protagoras  of  Plato,  and  it  is  probably  this  specimen 
alone  that  has  prompted  an  enthusiastic  student  of  Plato  and 
Aristotle  in  the  fourth  century  a.d.  to  describe  Protagoras  as 
‘expounding  the  poems  of  Simonides  and  other  poets’3. 

Hippias  of  Elis,  so  far  as  we  can  infer  from  the  two  dialogues 
in  the  Platonic  collection,  which  bear  his  name,  was 
interested,  not  only  in  the  accurate  study  of  letters 
and  syllables,  and  rhythms  and  harmonies4,  but  also  in  discussing 
the  characters  of  the  Homeric  heroes,  holding  the  ‘frank  and 
straightforward’ Achilles  superior  to  the  ‘wily  and  false’  Odysseus5. 
He  probably  agreed  with  the  father  of  one  of  the  interlocutors  in 
the  Lesser  Hippias  in  considering  the  Iliad  a  finer  poem  than 
the  Odyssey,  Odysseus  being  the  central  figure  of  the  one  poem, 
and  Achilles  of  the  other6.  Like  the  historian  Ephorus,  in  the 
following  century,  he  supposed  that  Homer  was  a  native  of 
Cumae7.  He  collected  parallel  passages  from  Homer,  Orpheus, 
Musaeus  and  Hesiod8;  and  he  observed  with  truth  that  the  term 
Tvpawos  did  not  belong  to  the  Homeric  age,  but  came  into  use  in 


Hippias 


1  Plato,  Rep.  606  E,  rr)v  'E\\a5a  ireiraldevicev. 

2  Poet.  c.  19  §  5. 

3  Themistius,  Or.  23,  ra  Ht/uuovLdo v  re  /ecu  aWojv  irof/xara  i^rjyotfievos. 

4  Hippias  Major ,  285  B;  Minor ,  368  D. 

5  Hippias  Minor ,  365  B.  6  ib.  363  B. 

7  The  Sixth  Life  of  Homer  in  Westermann’s  Bi6ypa<poi,  p.  30  f. 

8  Possibly  in  a  work  entitled  awa.yiay'f],  quoted  in  Athen.  609  A. 


28 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


the  time  of  Archilochus,  whereas  in  Homer  even  the  lawless  king 
Echetus  is  called  a  /3ao-t\ef ; l. 

His  namesake,  Hippias  of  Thasos,  gave  a  new  sense  to  two 
passages  of  Homer  by  proposing  an  emendation  in  each.  He 
altered  the  indicative  Si'8o/>ie v  into  the  infinitive  SiSo/acv  in  the 
words  St So/jLev  Se  ot  ev^os  apeo-^at,  1  we  grant  him  to  obtain  his 
prayer’,  which  appear  to  have  been  introduced  from  Iliad  xxi  297 
in  place  of  the  words  Tpoieo-o-i  Se  Krj&e  l^rjirTai  occurring  thrice  in 
Iliad  ii  15,  32,  69.  The  objection  to  the  indicative  is  that  it 
implies  that  Zeus  himself  was  intentionally  deceiving  Agamemnon 
in  sending  the  Dream-god  on  his  errand  to  the  hero,  but  the 
infinitive  only  removes  the  charge  of  deception  one  step  further, 
as  the  Dream-god,  who  is  prompted  to  deceive  the  hero,  is  un¬ 
doubtedly  sent  by  Zeus.  The  difficulty,  such  as  it  is,  seems  only 
to  have  been  founded  on  a  mistake,  as  it  is  only  by  misplacing  the 
phrase  of  Iliad  xxi  that  any  difficulty  arises.  In  the  other  passage 
{Iliad  xxiii  328)  an  ambiguous  ov  is  supposed  to  have  been  mis¬ 
understood  as  ov,  ‘of  it’,  in  which  case  the  lines  in  question  would 
have  run  as  follows  : — 

r 

earrjKe  ivXov  avov ,  oaov  r  opyvi,  vi rep  car 79, 
rj  8pvos  rj  7 ren/oys*  to  p.kv  ov  kclt airv 9 er at  op-fipi o. 

*  There  stands  a  withered  trunk,  some  six  feet  high, 

Of  oak,  or  pine,  half- rotted  by  the  rain  ’ 2. 

Hippias  appears  to  have  proposed  to  change  ov  into  ov  (‘  half- 
rotted’  into  ‘^-rotted’),  which  is  the  reading  in  our  present 
text3. 

Lastly,  Gorgias  ( c. .  485-380  b.c.)  probably  composed  a 
Eulogy  of  Achilles4.  He  is  the  author  of  two 
extant  speeches  connected  with  the  tale  of  Troy, 

1  Od.  xviii  84;  see  Argument  to  Soph.  O.  T '.,  and  cp.  Friedel,  De  Hippiae 
Sophistae  studiis  Homericis,  Halle,  1872,  and  De  Sophistarum  studiis  Homericis 
in  Dissert.  Philol.  Halenses ,  i  (1873)  pp.  130 — 188. 

2  Lord  Derby’s  rendering,  except  so  far  as  ‘  half-rotted  ’  is  here  substituted 
for  his  translation  of  the  ordinary  text,  ‘  unrotted ’. 

3  Aristotle,  Poet.  c.  25  §  11  and  De  Soph.  El.  iv  8,  with  Wolf’s  Proleg.  ad 
Homerum ,  c.  xxxvii  p.  102  Wagner,  and  Vahlen’s  Beitrdge  zu  Aristoteles 
Poetik,  iii  368.  On  the  other  hand,  Ritter  on  Poet.  l.c.  supposes  that  ov  was 
the  old  text,  read  by  Hippias  as  ov. 

4  Aristot.  Rhet.  iii  17. 


Gorgias 


II.] 


HOMER  AND  THE  ALLEGORISTS. 


29 


namely  the  ‘  Encomium  of  Helen 5  and  the  ‘  Defence  of  Pala- 
medes’.  Among  the  pupils  of  Gorgias,  Licymnius  may  perhaps  be 
identified  with  an  expositor  of  Homer  mentioned  in  the  Homeric 
scholia  while  Alcidamas  appears  to  have  written  a  declamation 
on  the  Odyssey ,  which  he  describes  as  ‘a  fair  mirror  of  human 


life’1 2. 

The  Homeric  representations  of  the  gods  roused  a  protest  on 
the  part  of  the  founder  of  the  Eleatics,  Xenophanes 

IP  rote  st  s 

of  Colophon  ( ft .  540-500  B.C.),  who  says  that  against  the 
‘  Homer  and  Hesiod  have  imputed  to  the  gods  all  Ho™ePc 
that  is  blame  and  shame  for  men’3.  It  was  on 
other  grounds  that  his  contemporary,  Heracleitus,  declared  that 
‘Homer  and  Archilochus  deserved  a  sound  thrashing’4,  nor  did 
he  spare  Hesiod.  He  apparently  held  that  the  first  two  poets 
were  wrong  in  regarding  happiness  as  dependent  on  the  will  of 
Heaven,  and  the  third  in  distinguishing  between  lucky  and  un¬ 
lucky  days5.  Another  great  contemporary,  Pythagoras,  is  said  to 
have  descended  to  the  world  below,  and  to  have  seen  the  soul  of 
Hesiod  bound  to  a  brazen  column,  squeaking  and  gibbering ; 
and  that  of  Homer  hanging  from  a  tree  and  encircled  by  serpents, 
in  punishment  for  all  that  he  had  said  concerning  the  gods 6. 

In  reply  to  protests  such  as  these,  some  of  the  defenders  of 
Homer  maintained  that  the  superficial  meaning 
of  his  myths  was  not  the  true  one,  and  that  there 
was  a  deeper  sense  lying  below  the  surface.  This 
deeper  sense  was,  in  the  Athenian  age,  called  the 

■7  and  the  vttovouu  of  this  age  assumed  the  name  of 


Homer 
defended  by 
allegorical 
interpretation 


Virovoia 


‘allegories’  in  the  times  of  Plutarch8.  Theagenes  of  Rhegium 
(Jl.  525  b.c.),  who  suggested  a  two-fold  form  of  allegory,  moral 


1  On  II.  ii  106. 

2  Aristot.  Rhet.  iii  3  §  4 ;  cp.  §§1,3. 

3  Sextus  Emp.,  Math,  ix  193,  7 ravra  deois  avldrjKav  "Opcypos  Q'  'H <xloS6s  re  | 
oacra  7 rap’  avOpwiroLcriv  oveidea  Kal  pdyos  iariv  (Zeller’s  Pre-socratic  Philosophy , 
i  561,  and  Jebb’s  Homer ,  p.  88  n.).  Cp.  in  general  Grafenhan,  Gesch.  d.  kl. 
Phil,  i  202  f,  21 1  f,  and  Egger,  l.c .,  p.  96s  f. 

4  Diog.  Laert.  ix  1.  5  Zeller,  l.c.,  i  10,  32,  102  f. 

6  Diog.  Laert.  viii  §  21. 

7  Xen.  Symp.  3  §  6;  cp.  Plato  Rep.  378  D. 

8  De  audiendis  poetis,  c.  4  p.  19  E. 


30 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


and  physical,  regarded  the  names  of  the  gods  as  expressing  either 
the  mental  faculties  of  man  or  the  various  elements  of  nature. 
Thus  Apollo  was,  in  his  view,  opposed  to  Poseidon,  as  fire  to 
water;  Pallas  to  Ares,  as  wisdom  to  folly;  Hera  to  Artemis,  as 
the  air  to  the  moon ;  Hermes  to  Leto,  as  reason,  or  intelligence, 
to  forgetfulness1.  Anaxagoras  of  Clazomenae  (c.  500-428  b.c.) 
saw  the  rays  of  the  sun  in  the  arrows  of  Apollo.  Not  content 
with  this  obvious  anticipation  of  Solar  Mythology,  he  is  said 
(whether  truly  or  not)  to  have  found  in  the  web  of  Penelope  an 
emblem  of  the  rules  of  dialectic,  the  warp  being  the  premises,  the 
woof  the  conclusion,  and  the  flame  of  the  torches,  by  which  she 
executed  her  task,  being  none  other  than  the  light  of  reason2. 
Though  he  is  stated  to  have  been  the  first  to  interpret  the 
Homeric  myths  in  a  moral  sense3,  this  is  probably  true  of  his 
pupils  only,  especially  of  Metrodorus  of  Lampsacus  (d.  464  b.c.), 
who  maintained  that  Hera,  Athene  and  Zeus  were  the  elements 
of  nature4,  and  that  Agamemnon5  represented  the  air.  Such 
interpreters  as  these  may  well  have  been  in  Aristotle’s  mind,  when 
he  mentions  the  ‘old  Homerists,  who  see  small  resemblances, 
but  overlook  large  ones’6. 

In  the  Memorabilia  of  Xenophon  the  rhapsodes  are  described 
as  ‘  very  precise  about  the  exact  words  of  Homer,  but  very  foolish 
themselves’7.  Among  the  rhapsodes  who  were  also  celebrated  as 
interpreters  of  Homer,  were  Stesimbrotus  of  Thasos,  a  contem¬ 
porary  of  Pericles,  and  Ion  of  Ephesus,  a  con¬ 
temporary  of  Socrates.  Ion,  who  gives  his  name 
to  one  of  the  most  interesting  of  the  shorter 
dialogues  of  Plato,  was  not  only  a  reciter,  but  also  an  inter¬ 
preter  of  Homer.  He  comes  to  recite  Homer  to  more  than  20,000 
Athenians  at  the  Panathenaea.  He  wears  a  golden  crown  and  is 
arrayed  in  a  magnificent  robe.  He  is  ‘  possessed  ’  with  an  enthu¬ 
siasm  for  Homer,  and  he  transmits  his  enthusiasm  to  his  audience. 


Homer  in 
Plato’s  Ion 


1  Schol.  Venet.  on  II.  xx  67. 

2  Schol.  on  Od.  ii  104.  3  Diog.  Laert.  ii  11. 

4  Tatian  c.  Graecos  202  D  (Zeller,  l.c.,  ii  372). 

5  Hesychius,  s.v. 

6  oi  apxdioL  '0/xripLKOL,  Met.  xiii  6,  7. 

7  Mem.  iv  2,  10. 


II.] 


PLATO  ON  HOMER. 


31 


It  is  through  him  that  the  magnetic  influence,  which  has  passed 
from  the  Muse  to  the  poet,  passes  from  the  poet  to  the  listener, 
who  is  the  last  link  in  the  magnetic  chain1.  Ion  was  also  the 
author  of  a  commentary  on  Homer.  He  declares  that  he  ‘  can 
speak  about  Homer  better  than  anyone  else’, — better  than  Metro- 
dorus  or  Stesimbrotus ;  and  it  may  fairly  be  assumed  that  the 
fluent  rhetorical  exposition,  with  which  he  ‘  embellished  ’  Homer, 
was  in  the  main  a  fanciful  allegorical  interpretation  of  the  poet’s 
meaning. 

But  no  apologetic  interpretation  of  the  Homeric  mythology 
was  of  any  avail  to  save  Homer  from  being  expelled  Homer  in 
with  all  the  other  poets  from  Plato’s  ideal  Republic.  Plato’s  Re- 
Plato  insists  that  the  stories  of  gods  and  heroes  told  *ubltc 
by  Homer  and  Hesiod  give  a  false  representation  of  their  nature2. 
The  poet  is  a  mere  ‘imitator’,  and  ‘we  must  inform  him  that 
there  is  no  room  for  such  as  he  in  our  State’3.  ‘  The  awe  and  love 
of  Homer’,  of  which  Plato  had  been  conscious  from  his  child¬ 
hood,  ‘  makes  the  words  falter  on  his  lips ;  but  the  truth  must  be 
spoken4.’  ‘All  the  poets,  from  Homer  downwards,  are  only  imi¬ 
tators  ;  they  copy  images  of  virtue,  but  the  truth  they  never 
reach’5.  ‘  We  are  ready  to  admit  that  Homer  is  the  greatest  of 
poets . . ,  but  we  must  remain  firm  in  our  conviction  that  hymns 
to  the  gods  and  eulogies  of  famous  men  are  the  only  poetry  which 
ought  to  be  admitted  into  our  State’6.  Homer’s  expulsion  from 
Plato’s  Republic  called  forth  a  considerable  controversial  litera¬ 
ture7.  Athens,  notwithstanding  this  expulsion,  continued  to 
learn  Homer  by  heart8,  and  this  ancient  custom  was  continued 
far  beyond  the  Athenian  age.  Even  at  the  close  of  the  first 
century  of  our  era  there  were  Greeks  in  the  Troad  who  taught 
their  children  Homer  from  their  earliest  years9.  In  fact,  from 
the  Athenian  age  to  the  present  day,  the  study  of  Homer  has 
never  ceased. 

1  Ion  533  D— E. 

2  Rep.  377  D — 378  E.  Hesiod  is  also  clearly  meant,  though  not  mentioned,, 
in  Laws  886  b — c. 

3  Rep.  398  A.  4  595  B.  5  600  E.  6  607  A. 

7  Sengebusch,  Diss.  i  119  (Mahaffy,  Gr.  Lit.  i  33). 

8  Xen.  Symp.  3  §  5. 

9  Dion  Chrysostom,  Or.  up.  308  R. 


32 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


In  connexion  with  the  use  of  Homer  as  an  educational  text¬ 
book,  we  may  recall  two  anecdotes  of  some  little  interest  in 
Plutarch’s  Life  of  Alcibiades  *.  We  are  there  told  that  when 
Alcibiades  ‘  was  just  emerging  from  boyhood,  he  went  to  a  school¬ 
master  and  asked  him  for  a  book  of  Homer ;  and,  on  the  master’s 
replying  that  he  had  nothing  whatsoever  of  Homer’s,  Alcibiades 
struck  him  with  his  fist,  and  went  on  his  way’.  Another  school¬ 
master  told  him  that  he  ‘  had  a  copy  of  Homer,  emended  by  him¬ 
self’.  ‘What?’  said  Alcibiades,  ‘are  you  really  content  to  teach 
reading  and  writing,  when  you  are  capable  of  emending  Homer  ? 
Why  are  you  not  instructing  young  men?’  The  first  of  these 
anecdotes  shows  that  a  young  Athenian  held  he  had  a  right  to 
expect  even  an  elementary  teacher  to  possess  part  at  least  of  the 
poems  of  Homer ;  the  second  presents  us  with  an  early  example 
of  amateur  textual  criticism and  both  imply  that  Homer  was 
really  better  suited  as  a  text-book  for  young  men  than  for  mere 
children. 

In  the  earliest  play  of  Aristophanes  there  was  a  scene  in  which 
a  father,  who  believed  in  the  old-fashioned  style  of 

Aristophanes  ...  .... 

poetic  education,  is  represented  as  examining  his 
son  as  to  the  meaning  of  certain  ‘hard  words  in  Homer’1 2:  the 
son,  who  has  a  preference  for  the  prose  of  practical  life,  retorts  by 
asking  his  father  the  meaning  of  obsolete  terms  in  the  laws  of 
Solon.  In  the  Frogs ,  ‘  the  divine  Homer  ’  is  counted  among  the 
nobler  poets,  because  he  is  preeminently  the  poet  of  the  art  of 
war3.  He  is  also  quoted  or  parodied  in  several  passages4. 

Turning  from  the  comic  poet  to  one  of  the  gravest  of  the 
ancient  rhetoricians,  we  find  Isocrates,  in  his  letter 
of  exhortation  to  Nicocles,  expressing  his  own 
admiration  for  Homer  and  for  the  early  tragic  poets5,  and 
rebuking  his  contemporaries  for  preferring  the  most  paltry  comedy 

1  Plut.  Alcib.  7. 

2  Aristoph.  AcuraAeis,  quoted  by  Galen  in  praef.  lexici  Hippocratici,  p.  404 
Franz,  irposTaOra  crv  Xl^ou  'O/Arjpeiovs  yXu)Tras,  tL  naXovai  K6pvp.(3a...,TL  kciXovo 3 
apLev rjya  Kaprjva. 

3  Frogs  1036. 

4  Birds  575,  685,  910,  914,  Peace  1089  ff,  Clouds  1056. 

5  Isocr.  2  §  48. 


II.] 


QUOTATIONS  FROM  HOMER. 


33 


to  the  poems  of  Hesiod  and  Theognis  and  Phocylides1.  In  his 
Panegyric  he  describes  the  fame  of  Homer  as  enhanced  by  the 
fact  that  ‘  he  pronounced  a  splendid  eulogy  on  those  who  fought 
against  the  foreign  foe’,  adding  that  this  was  the  reason  why  he 
had  been  honoured  by  Athens  in  the  instruction  of  her  youth2. 
In  his  pamphlet  Against  the  Sophists  he  points  out  why  it  is  that 
Homer,  who  ‘  is  deemed  the  wisest  of  men’,  describes  the  gods  as 
deliberating.  It  is  because  he  desires  to  teach  mortal  men  that 
even  the  gods  cannot  discern  the  future3.  Lastly,  in  his  Pana- 
thenaic ,  written  in  the  95th  year  of  his  age,  he  speaks  of  the 
frequenters  of  the  Lyceum  as  reciting  the  poems  of  Homer  and 
Hesiod,  and  as  ‘  talking  twaddle  ’  about  them ;  but  he  defers  his 
own  remarks  on  those  poets  to  a  more  convenient  season,  which 
never  came4. — It  was  probably  in  the  time  of  the  pupils  of 
Isocrates  that  Homer  became  the  ‘theme  of  the  paltry  criticisms 
of  Zoilus  (see  p.  108  f). 

The  quotations  from  the  ‘Homeric  poems’  in  the  Athenian 
age  sometimes  differ  from  our  present  texts.  Thu¬ 


cydides5  quotes  two  passages  from  the  ‘Homeric’  Quotations 


from  Homer 


hymn  to  Apollo6  in  a  form  slightly  different  from 
that  handed  down  to  us  in  the  mss  of  the  hymns,  while  he  identi¬ 
fies  with  Homer  the  ‘  blind  man  ’  there  described  as  ‘  dwelling  in 
rocky  Chios’.  Similar  divergences  may  be  noticed  in  Plato’s 
quotations.  Some  of  these  are  clearly  intentional,  while  others 
are  almost  certainly  due  to  mistakes  of  memory7.  Aeschines 
quotes  a  passage  of  fifteen  lines  from  the  Iliad9, ,  the  longest  quoted 
by  any  classical  writer,  with  at  least  four  variations ;  and  Lycurgus 
a  shorter  passage  with  very  slight  changes9.  Further,  about 
twenty-one  of  Aristotle’s  quotations  from  Homer  differ  from  our 
ordinary  text10,  and  there  are  also  five  passages  in  which  he  refers 


1  Isocr.  2  §§  43,  44.  2  Paneg.  159. 

3  13  §  4  12  §§  33,  34.  5  Thuc.  iii  104. 

6  Homeric  Hymn ,  i  145 — 150  and  165 — 172. 

7  Rep.  379  D,  388  A,  389  E,  405  E,  424  B. 

8  II.  xxiii  77 — 91,  quoted  by  Aeschin.  i  149. 

9  II.  xv  494—9;  Lyc.  §  103. 

10  Iliad  ii  32,  196,  391  f,  iv  125,  vi  200,  vii  63,  viii  18  f,  84,  ix  385  f,  538  f, 
592  f,  x  I,  12,  457,  xi  542,  xiv  217,  xv  245;  Odyssey  iv  567,  xi  598,  xv  399, 
xix  1 2 1.  Cp.  R.  Wachsmuth,  De  Aristotelis  Studiis  Homericis  Capita  Selecta, 

S.  ? 


34 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


very  loosely  to  the  language  of  the  Homeric  poems1.  All  these 
variations  may  be  due  to  errors  of  memory,  and  they  appear  to 
throw  little  (if  any)  light  on  the  state  of  the  Homeric  text  in  the 
fifth  and  fourth  centuries  b.c.  On  the  whole,  the  evidence  of 
quotations  shows  that  the  text  of  those  centuries  was  practically 
the  same  as  ours  2. 

The  epic  poet  Antimachus,  of  Colophon  in  Ionia  (fl.  464-410), 
who  was  among  the  older  contemporaries  of  Plato,  prepared  a 
text  of  Homer,  which  is  mentioned  seven  times  in  the  Venetian 
Scholia  on  Homer3,  and  was  supposed  by  Mr  F.  A.  Paley  to 
Early  be  perhaps  the  first  publication  of  the  Iliad  and 

‘editions ’of  Odyssey  in  their  present  form4.  An  ‘edition’  of 
Homer  is  also  attributed  to  Aristotle  by  Plutarch  and 
Strabo.  The  former  in  his  life  of  Alexander  quotes  Onesicritus  as 
stating  that  Alexander  constantly  kept  under  his  pillow,  with  his 
dagger,  a  copy  of  the  Iliad ,  which  Aristotle  had  corrected  for 
him,  called  ‘the  casket  copy55.  Strabo  calls  Alexander  an 
admirer  of  Homer  ( <f>i\o/jir)po<s ),  adding  that  there  was  a  recen¬ 
sion  of  Homer  called  ‘  that  of  the  casket 5 ;  that  Alexander 
had  perused  and  annotated  certain  parts  of  it  with  the  help  of 
men  like  Callisthenes  and  Anaxarchus ;  and  that  he  kept  it  in 
a  casket  of  costly  workmanship  which  he  had  found  in  the 
Persian  treasure6.  On  the  eve  of  his  victorious  career  in  Asia, 
he  visited  the  plains  of  Troy,  and  placed  a  garland  on  the 
tomb  of  Achilles,  declaring  him  happy  in  having  had,  in  his 
life,  a  faithful  friend,  and  in  his  death  a  mighty  herald  of  his 
fame7. 

pp.  1 — 19,  and  on  the  variations  in  Plato  and  Aeschines,  as  well  as  in 
Aristotle,  Laroche,  Homerische  Textkritik  (1866),  p.  23 — 36,  with  Wilamowitz 
Horn.  Unt.,  p.  299.  Cp.  Romer,  Sitzungsb.  d.  Miinchener  Acad,  xvii  (1884) 
264—314,  639  ff. 

1  Eth.  ii  9,  iii  n  ;  Pol.  viii  3,  p.  1338^;  Rhet.  iii  4;  Poet.  8. 

2  A.  Ludwich,  Die  P[omer-vulgata  als  voralexandnnische  erwiesen,  1898. 

3  r)  ’ Autl/io-xov  (sc.  tudoais),  7]  Kara  ’ AvtL/jlo.xov,  i)  ’ Avn/uaxeios.  Schol.  on 
II.  i  298,  424,  598;  v  461;  xiii  60;  xxiii  870;  and  Od.  i  85. 

4  Homeri  quae  nunc  exstant  an  reliquis  Cycli  carminibus  antiquiora  iure 
habita  sint  (1878),  p.  39,  quis  ille  fuerit  qui  Homerum  nostrum  litteris  primum 
mandavit,  si  non  fuit  Antimachus,  ego  ignoro. 

5  Plut.  Alex.  8,  r]  £k  tov  vdpdTjKos. 

6  Strabo  p.  594. 


7  Plut.  Alex.  15. 


II.] 


ARISTOTLE  ON  HOMER. 


35 


Aristotle,  in  his  Poetic ,  describes  Homer  as  ‘representing  men  as 
better  than  they  are  ’  (2  §  3),  and  as  ‘  pre-eminent  in 
the  serious  style  of  poetry’  (4  §  9),  as  ‘  the  earliest  and  Ho”er°tle  °n 
the  most  adequate  model’  of  all  the  excellences  of 
epic  poetry,  and  as  ‘  unequalled  in  diction  and  thought  ’  (24  §§  1,  2). 
The  poet  keeps  himself  in  the  background,  leaving  his  characters, 
which  are  clearly  marked,  to  speak  for  themselves  (§  7).  He  has 
taught  all  other  poets  the  true  art  of  illusion  (§  9).  In  ‘  unity  of 
plot’,  as  in  all  else,  he  is  of  surpassing  merit;  he  has  made  the 
Iliad, ,  and  also  the  Odyssey,  centre  round  a  single  action  (8  §  3). 
These  two  poems  ‘  have  many  parts,  each  with  a  certain  magnitude 
of  its  own ;  yet  they  are  as  perfect  as  possible  in  structure  ’ 
(26  §  6)1.  In  the  Rhetoric  Aristotle,  in  explaining  what  he  means 
by  ‘  bringing  things  before  the  eye  ’,  or  vividness  of  expression,  cites 
a  series  of  metaphors  from  Homer  : — the  stone  of  Sisyphus  ‘  re¬ 
morseless  ’  in  its  bounding  down  into  the  valley,  the  flying  arrow 
‘  yearning  ’  for  its  mark,  the  javelins  ‘  thirsting  ’  for  the  foeman’s 
blood,  and  the  ‘passionate’  spear-point,  speeding  through  the 
hero’s  breast.  The  same  vivid  effect,  he  adds,  is  produced  by  the 
similes,  in  which  Homer  gives  life  and  movement  and  animation 
to  things  inanimate,  as  in  the  line  where  he  says  of  the  ‘waves  of 
the  bellowing  ocean  ’, — ‘  Arch’d  and  crested  with  foam,  they  sweep 
on,  billow  on  billow’2. 

Aristotle’s  interest  in  Homer  led  him  to  draw  up  a  collection 
of  Homeric  Problems ,  a  subject  which  he  approaches  in  the 
chapter  on  ‘  critical  difficulties  and  their  solutions  ’  towards  the 
close  of  his  treatise  on  Poetry3.  These  Problems  are  only  pre¬ 
served  in  a  fragmentary  form4.  For  most  of  our  knowledge  of 
their  purport  we  are  indebted  to  the  scholia  on  the  mss  of  Homer, 
especially  in  the  Venice  ms  b  (cent.  xi).  They  are  there  quoted 
in  twenty-one  places,  not  to  mention  isolated  passages  of  Strabo, 
Plutarch  and  Athenaeus ;  they  were  also  familiar  to  the  Neo- 


1  Cp.  Jebb’s  Homer ,  p.  4  f.  2  Rhet.  iii  11  §§3,  4. 

3  Poet.  25,  trepl  Trpo^Xrj/JidTuu  Kal  Xticrewv,  esp.  §§  10,  11. 

4  airopr)p.aTa,  Trpo/3Xr)p,aTa  or  ^r^/xara  (originally  in  either  6,  7  or  10 
books),  Aristot.  frag.  142 — 179  Rose.  In  one  of  these  fragments  we  find  the 
verb  ryirbpr)(rev  (159),  in  five  the  corresponding  verb  Xbetv  (149,  160,  161,  164, 
174)  and  in  one  (179)  the  title  ’Ap. ' Op.rjpi.Ko7s  diropr)p.a<nv. 


3~2 


3^ 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


platonist  Porphyry,  the  author  of  a  similar  work  in  the  third 
century  of  our  era.  The  points  raised  concern  the  ethical  and 
dramatic  sense  of  the  poems,  rather  than  verbal  or  literary 
criticism1.  For  example,  ‘Why  does  Agamemnon  tempt  the 
army  to  return  to  Greece?’2  ‘When  the  Greeks  are  fleeing  to 
their  ships,  why  is  it  that  Odysseus  flings  off  his  cloak,  when  he 
runs  at  the  bidding  of  Athene  to  stay  their  flight?’3  ‘  Why  does 
Homer  assign  to  Crete  one  hundred  cities  in  the  Iliad,  and  only 
ninety  in  the  Odyssey?’*  ‘Why  are  we  told  in  the  Iliad  that  the 
sun -god  sees  and  hears  everything,  and  yet  in  the  Odyssey  he 
needs  a  messenger  to  tell  him  of  the  slaughter  of  his  oxen  ? ’5  ‘If 
the  gods  drink  nothing  but  nectar,  why  is  Calypso  described  as 
mixing  a  draught  for  Hermes,  mixing  implying  the  addition  of 
water  ?  ’ 6  “  What  is  meant  by  ‘  more  of  the  night  than  two  of  the 

three  parts  is  gone,  and  (yet)  the  third  part  still  remains’?7  ”  ‘Why 
are  two  talents  of  gold  (an  apparently  large  amount)  given  as  a 
fourth  prize  in  a  chariot-race?’8  Part  of  Aristotle’s  reply  to  this 
last  question  is  to  the  effect  that  the  Homeric  talent  was  smaller 
than  the  Attic  talent ;  and,  so  far,  modern  scholars  are  in  entire 
accord  with  Aristotle.  Once  we  seem  to  reach  the  region  of 
textual  criticism  when  the  question  is  asked,  “why  is  the  epithet 
av8l/ecrcra,  ‘voiceful’,  ‘speaking  with  human  voice’,  applied  to  the 
‘goddesses’  Circe  and  Calypso9,  as  well  as  to  the  once  mortal 
Ino?” 10  Here  it  is  strangely  proposed  in  the  first  two  cases  to  read 
avXrjf.craa,  which  can  only  mean  ‘apt  at  playing  on  the  flute’,  and 
yet  is  described  as  a  synonym  for  ‘apt  in  singing  a  solo’; 

and,  in  the  case  of  Ino,  to  read  ouS^eo-cm,  ‘  earthly’.  These  frag¬ 
mentary  Homeric  problems ,  as  a  whole,  are  very  disappointing ;  and 
it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  Aristotle  himself  is  really  re¬ 
sponsible  for  them,  any  more  than  for  much  that  has  come  down 
under  his  name  in  the  varied  contents  of  the  general  Problems u. 

1  Cp.  Egger,  l.c.  pp.  188  — 1943,  and  Saintsbury,  l.c .,  pp.  49  f. 

2  P-  A  73- 

3  II.  ii  305.  4  II.  ii  649;  Od.  xix  173. 

5  II.  iii  277;  Od.  xii  374.  6  Od.  v  93.  7  II.  x  253. 

8  II.  xxiii  269;  Arist.  Frag.  164  Rose. 

9  Each  of  these  is  called  a  debs  avdr/eooa  in  Od.  x  136  etc.,  and  xii  449. 

10  Od.  v  334,  [3poTos  avStjecroa.  11  Zeller,  Aristotle ,  i  96,  104. 


II.] 


THE  STUDY  OF  HESIOD. 


37 


It  is  refreshing  to  turn  from  these  to  the  passage  in  his  Poetic, 
where  he  quotes  the  Homeric  phrase,  describing  the  comrades  of 
Diomede  as  sleeping  with  their  spears  standing  upright  on  their 
butt-ends,  ‘their  spears  stood  upright  on  the  spike’1,  instead  of 
being  laid  level  with  the  ground,  in  which  case  (as  observed  by  the 
scholiast)  there  would  have  been  no  risk  of  a  spear  falling,  and 
raising  an  alarm.  Aristotle  solves  the  difficulty  caused  by  the  ex¬ 
ceptional  position  of  the  spear,  by  simply  suggesting  that  ‘  this  was 
the  custom  then,  as  it  is  now  among  the  Illyrians’2.  It  was  prob¬ 
ably  in  one  of  his  lost  chapters  on  Poetry  that  Aristotle  observed 
that  ‘the  most  striking  thing  in  Homer’  was  the  passage  describing 
the  effect  produced  on  the  Trojans  when  they  first  see  Patroclus, 
gleaming  in  the  armour  of  Achilles,  and  fancy  for  the  moment  that 
Achilles  has  laid  aside  his  ‘  wrath  ’,  and  has  been  reconciled  to  the 
Greeks: — ‘each  several  man  peered  round 3  to  seek  escape  from  sheer 
destruction’.  This,  adds  Aristotle,  is  characteristic  of  barbarians3. 

We  have  seen  thus  far  that,  from  the  days  of  Solon  to  those 
of  Aristotle,  Homer  was  constantly  studied  and  quoted,  and 
was  a  favourite  theme  for  allegorizing  interpretation  and  for 
rationalistic  or  rhetorical  treatment.  He  was  also  the  subject  of 
a  very  limited  amount  of  verbal  criticism.  Of  any  literary  criti¬ 
cism  of  his  poems,  we  have  scanty  evidence,  with  the  important 
exception  of  Aristotle’s  treatise  on  Poetry.  The  criticism  of 
his  text  was  in  the  main  reserved  for  the  Alexandrian  age. 

Apart  from  Homer,  the  epic  poets  studied  in  the  Athenian 
age  included  those  of  the  ‘Epic  Cycle’  (c.  776-566  b.c.)  which  (as 
we  have  already  seen)  supplied  the  tragic  poets  with  many  of  their 
themes.  The  Theocrony  of  Hesiod  ( floruit  c.  720? 

,  y  v  '  Hesiod 

b.c.)  was  also  studied  as  a  text-book  of  mythology, 
and  the  questions  which  it  raised  may  well  have  been  em¬ 
barrassing  to  instructors  who  had  to  deal  with  exceptionally 
precocious  pupils.  We  are  told  that  Epicurus,  before  the  age 

1  II.  x  152  f,  £yxfa  ^  <T<PLU  I  fipO'  evri  aavpWTiipos. 

2  Poet.  25  §  7. 

3  Townley  Schol.  on  11.  xvi  283  (Aristot.  Frag.  130  Rose)  Trairr rj vev  : 
beLvbraTov  r&v  eiruiv  'Op.'qpov  tovtS  tprjaiv  ' ApicrT0Tt\r]5  ev  $  vavres  (pevKTiuxri, 
Kal  oIkIlov  /3apj3apu)v. 


38 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


of  fourteen  (c.  328  b.c.),  asked  certain  schoolmasters  and  sophists 
some  puzzling  questions  about  Hesiod’s  account  of  Chaos;  and 
that,  dissatisfied  with  their  replies,  he  resolved  on  devoting 
himself  to  the  study  of  philosophy1.  Still  more  popular  was 
his  poem  on  Works  a?id  Days ,  which  with  its  moral  maxims 
and  its  precepts  of  farming  is  the  prototype  not  only  of  Tusser’s 
Points  of  Good  Husba?idrie  but  also  of  Tupper’s  Proverbial 
Philosophy.  Aristophanes  makes  Aeschylus  name  Hesiod  among 
the  ‘noble  poets’,  because  he  tells  of  ‘tilling  the  soil  and  times 
for  ploughing  and  seasons  of  harvest’2.  One  passage  from  this 
poem,  that  on  Fame  or  Rumour,  is  quoted  by  Aristotle,  as  well 
as  twice  by  Aeschines3,  who  also  quotes  on  two  occasions  a 
passage  of  political  import4,  and  in  the  second  of  these  last 
occasions  introduces  the  lines  by  observing  that  ‘  the  reason  why 
we  learn  the  precepts  of  the  poets  by  heart  in  our  boyhood  is 
in  order  that  we  may  obey  them  when  we  arrive  at  man’s  estate  ’. 
Hesiod  was  also  the  reputed  author  of  a  versified  form  of 
the  precepts  of  reverence  and  obedience,  which  Achilles  learnt 
from  the  centaur  Cheiron ;  and  the  fame  of  Cheiron’s  precepts 
is  attested  not  only  by  Pindar5  and  Plato6,  but  also  by  that 
unknown  artist  who  on  a  vase  in  the  Berlin  Museum  represents 
two  boys  standing  and  listening  with  rapt  attention  to  a  boy 
seated  between  them  who  is  reading  from  a  scroll,  with  a  box 
before  him  on  which  rests  a  second  scroll  bearing  in  archaic 
characters  the  title  +IRONEIA7.  The  Hesiodic  authorship  of  this 
work  was  first  denied  in  the  Alexandrian  age,  by  Aristophanes 
of  Byzantium8. 

Only  two  more  epic  poets  need  here  be  mentioned.  The 
first  of  these,  Antimachus  of  Colophon  (fl.  c.  464- 

Antimachus  #  r  w 

410),  the  author  of  a  prolix  poem  called  the 

1  Diog.  Laert.  x  2.  2  Frogs,  1034. 

3  Woi'ks  and  Days  761;  Aeschin.  1  §  129,  2  §  144  (cp.  Dem.  19  §  243); 

Aristot.  Eth.  vii  13,  5. 

4  ib.  240  f;  Aeschin.  2  §  158,  3  §  135. 

5  Pyth.  iv  102. 

6  Rep.  391  b — c. 

7  See  cut  in  Klein,  Euphronios ,  283s;  Daremberg  and  Saglio,  s.v.  Educa¬ 
tion,  p.  469;  or  P.  Girard,  Ed.  Ath.,  p.  149. 

8  Quint,  i  1,  15  (cp.  Kinkel,  Ep.  Gr.  Frag,  i  pp.  148  f). 


II.] 


ANTIMACHUS  AND  CHOERILUS. 


39 


Thebais ,  is  said  to  have  begun  the  story  of  the  return  of  Diomede 
with  the  death  of  Meleager,  and  to  have  reached  the  end  of 
Book  xxiv  before  getting  the  Seven  heroes  before  the  gates 
of  Thebes1.  Nevertheless  he  appears  to  have  been  approved 
by  Plato,  who  is  said  to  have  been  present  on  the  occasion 
when  the  poet  recited  his  voluminous  work.  One  by  one  the 
company  slipped  away,  till  Plato  alone  remained.  ‘ 1  shall  go 
on  reading’,  said  the  poet  unperturbed,  ‘  Plato  alone  in  my 
opinion  is  worth  a  thousand’2.  The  philosopher  is  also  said  to 
have  sent  to  Colophon  for  a  complete  collection  of  his  poems, 
and  to  have  preferred  him  to  Choerilus3,  an  opinion  which 
was  afterwards  opposed  in  the  Pergamene  School  by  Crates  of 
Mallos4.  In  the  Alexandrian  age  the  diffuseness  of  his  epic 
poem  was  condemned  by  Callimachus5,  whose  condemnation  is 
echoed  by  Catullus6.  Nevertheless  he  was  awarded  a  high 
place  in  the  Canon  of  the  epic  poets7,  and  was  even  preferred  to 
Homer  by  the  emperor  Hadrian8,  possibly  because  he  was  easier 
to  imitate.  Mention  has  already  been  made  of  his  ‘  edition  ’  of 
Homer,  some  of  the  readings  of  which  are  recorded  in  the 
Homeric  scholia 9. 

The  second  of  these  epic  poets,  Choerilus  of  Samos  (fl.  404 
b.c.),  who  was  regarded  by  the  Spartan  general, 

Lysander,  and  by  the  Macedonian  king,  Arche- 
laus,  as  one  of  the  foremost  poets  of  his  time10,  was  the  author 
of  an  important  Epic  on  the  Persian  wars.  Choerilus  broke 
new  ground  by  abandoning  the  old  mythological  themes  in 
favour  of  a  national  and  historical  subject.  He  attained  the 
unique  honour  of  a  decree  providing  apparently  for  the  public 
recitation  of  his  poems  together  with  those  of  Homer11.  Aris- 

1  Porphyrion  on  Horace,  A.  P.  146. 

2  Cic.  Brutus ,  191. 

3  Proclus  on  Plato,  Tim.  i  p.  28  c  (Kinkel  l.c.  p.  274). 

4  A  nth.  Pal.  xi  218. 

5  Frag.  441.  6  C.  95,  10.  7  Quint,  x  i  53. 

8  Dio  Cass,  lxix  4  (cp.  Plist.  Aug.  Hadr.  15). 

9  Supra ,  p.  34,  note  3.  Cp.  A.  Ludwich,  Aristarchs  Homerische  Text- 

kritik,  i  18;  ii  432,  383. 

10  Plutarch,  Lysand.  18;  Athen.  345  D. 

11  Suidas,  ai/v  rots ' O/jnrjpov  avayii'ibvKeo’dcu  exf/rjfpLadTj  (Kinkel  l.c.  p.  265). 


40 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP.  II. 


totle  in  the  Topics 1  considers  the  Homeric  similes  clearer  than 
those  of  Choerilus.  In  the  Rhetoric 2  he  quotes  what  is  ob¬ 
viously  part  of  the  exordium  of  his  Epic,  immediately  after 
the  first  phrase  of  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey. 

From  another  passage  early  in  this  poem  Aristotle  quotes 
a  single  phrase  as  an  example  of  an  apologetic  exordium  : — 
vvv  S’  ore  rravra  SeSao-rai,  ‘now  that  all  has  been  apportioned’. 
His  readers  were  doubtless  familiar  with  the  context,  which  has 
fortunately  been  preserved  in  an  ancient  scholium ,  and  in  the 
form  of  the  following  paraphrase  may  fitly  close  the  present 
chapter : 

Oh !  the  bards  of  olden  ages,  blessed  bards  in  song-craft  skill’d, 

Happy  henchmen  of  the  Muses,  when  the  field  was  yet  untill’d. 

All  the  land  is  now  appqrtion’d  ;  bounds  to  all  the  Arts  belong ; 

Left  the  last  of  all  the  poets,  looking  keenly,  looking  long, 

I  can  find  no  bright  new  chariot  for  the  race-course  of  my  song3. 


1  •  •  • 

1  vm  r. 

*  ill  14. 

3  a  fi&Kap,  Sans  Srjv  Ketvov  xp&ov  idpis  aoidrjs , 

Movadiap  dep&Trajv,  or ’  aKr/paros  rjv  Stl  keipibu’ 
vvv  S'  ore  iravra  deSaarai,  Sxovai  8S  treipara  rex^ou, 
vararoi  dare  dpdpiov  Ka.rcikelTrop.eO' ,  ovSt  iry  San 
TnxPTT)  Trourraivovra  veo^vyk s  appa  irekdaaai. 


Since  the  above  chapter  was  in  type ,  Mr  D.  B.  Monro  has  published, ,  in  the 
Appendix  to  his  edition  of  Odyssey  xiii-xxiv  (1901),  important  papers  on 
'■Homer  and  the  Cyclic  poets'  (pp.  340 — 354),  and  on  the  ‘ History  of  the 
Homeric  poems'  (pp.  355 — 454). 


CHAPTER  III. 


THE  STUDY  OF  LYRIC  POETRY. 


An  interesting  picture  of  the  normal  course  of  education  at 
Athens  is  drawn  by  Protagoras  in  the  dialogue  of 
Plato  which  bears  that  name.  In  the  picture  in  poetry study  ° 
question  special  stress  is  laid  on  the  study  of  the  plato’s 

1  r  J  Protagoras 

poets. 


When  the  boys  have  learned  their  letters,  and  are  beginning  to  understand 
the  sense  of  what  is  written, ...their  teachers  set  beside  them  the  works  of 
excellent  poets,  and  compel  the  boys,  while  seated  on  the  benches,  to  read 
them  aloud  and  learn  them  by  heart.  In  these  are  contained  many  admo¬ 
nitions,  many  detailed  narratives  and  eulogies  and  laudations  of  brave  men  of 
old.  These  are  learnt  by  heart,  in  order  that  the  boy  may  emulate  and  imitate 
those  brave  men,  and  be  eager  to  become  like  them....  Then,  again,  the 
teachers  of  the  cithara,  as  soon  as  their  pupils  have  learned  to  play  on  that 
instrument,  instruct  them  in  the  works  of  other  excellent  poets,  the  composers 
of  songs1,  which  they  set  to  music,  forcing  the  very  souls  of  the  boys  to  become 
familiar  with  their  rhythms  and  their  melodies,  in  order  that  they  may  be  more 
gentle,  and  be  better  fitted  for  speech  and  action  by  becoming  more  beautifully 
‘  rhythmical  ’  and  ‘  melodious  ’ ;  for  the  whole  of  man’s  life  has  need  of  beauty 
of  rhythm  and  of  melody.  Besides  all  this,  their  parents  send  them  to  the 
master  of  gymnastic,  in  order  that  they  may  have  their  bodies  in  better 
condition  and  able  to  minister  to  the  virtue  of  their  minds,  and  not  be 
compelled  by  the  weakness  of  their  bodies  to  play  the  coward  either  in  war  or 
in  any  other  action2. 


The  study  of  the  poets  is  also  emphasised  in  the  references  to 
the  ordinary  course  of  education  contained  in  Plato’s  Laws : 

We  have  very  many  poets  (says  ‘the  Athenian’  in  that  dialogue),  writing 
in  hexameter  verse,  and  in  (iambic)  trimeters,  and  in  all  other  kinds  of 


1  fxeXoiroi&v. 


2  Plato,  Protag.  325  c — 326  E. 


42 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


‘metres’,  some  with  a  serious  purpose,  others  aiming  merely  at  raising  a 
laugh.  With  these  the  many  myriads  of  Athens  say  that  young  men,  who  are 
being  rightly  educated,  should  be  nurtured  and  saturated,  by  being  made  to 
have  much  to  hear  at  recitations,  and  much  to  learn,  and  by  getting  whole 
poets  by  heart ;  while  others  select  choice  passages  out  of  all  the  poets  and 
make  a  collection  of  certain  complete  set-speeches,  and  say  that  these  are  what 
should  be  committed  to  memory  by  anyone  who  is  to  be  made  good  and  wise 
by  a  variety  of  experience  and  a  variety  of  learning1. 


The  artistic  counterpart  of  these  pictures  is  to  be  found  in  the 
scenes  from  an  Athenian  school  which  adorn  the 
ingbySrfs"  outside  of  an  Attic  vase  executed  by  Duris  in  the 
early  part  of  the  fifth  century  b.c.  In  the  centre  of 
one  of  the  two  scenes  the  master,  seated  on  a  chair,  holds  a  scroll 
half  open,  and  listens  to  a  boy  standing  before  him,  who  may 
either  be  saying  by  heart  the  lesson  that  he  has  learnt,  or  com¬ 
mitting  it  to  memory  under  the  master’s  prompting.  The  open 
part  of  the  scroll  bears  a  rather  inaccurate  copy  of  a  line  from 
some  ancient  Hymn  : — Moura  /xoi  ap-cfn  %Kap.av$pov  ivppoov  apyopLcn 
actSctv.  To  the  left  is  a  bearded  master  playing  a  seven-stringed 
lyre,  face  to  face  with  a  pupil  who  is  playing  on  a  smaller  instru¬ 
ment  of  the  same  kind;  both  of  these  are  seated  on  stools.  To 
the  right,  seated  on  another  stool,  is  a  bearded  man  with  a  staff 
in  his  hand,  probably  the  boy’s  tutor  or  supervisor,  the  7rai8aywyo's. 
In  the  centre  of  the  second  scene  a  youthful  teacher  sits  holding 
a  tablet  in  his  left  hand  and  a  stylus  in  his  right.  He  is  ap¬ 
parently  correcting  an  exercise  written  by  the  boy  who  stands 
before  him.  To  the  left  another  youthful  teacher  is  playing  the 
double  flute  as  a  lesson  to  a  second  boy  standing  before  him. 
To  the  right,  as  in  the  first  scene,  sits  a  bearded  man  with  a  staff, 
watching  the  giving  of  the  lesson.  A  variety  of  articles  are 
suspended  on  the  walls,  including  a  scroll  tied  up,  a  pair  of 
writing-tablets  fastened  together  by  a  string,  a  wicker-basket,  two 
flat  drinking-cups,  a  cross-like  object  consisting  of  two  intersecting 
pieces  (possibly  for  drawing  angles  and  straight  lines),  and  lastly  a 
flute-case,  and  three  lyres2. 


1  Plato,  Laws  810  E. 

2  Published  (with  red  figures  on  black  ground)  in  Mon.  d.  Inst,  ix  pi.  54 ; 
also,  with  article  by  Michaelis,  in  Arch.  Zeitung ,  xxxi  p.  t.  See  Frontispiece. 


THE  STUDY  OF  LYRIC  POETRY. 


43 


The  stringed  instrument  of  the  Homeric  poems  is  the 
fihorminx  or  cithara  or  citharis .  The  citharis  and 
the  ‘lyre’  are  synonymous  in  the  Hymn  to  Hermes,  and^he^yre3 
where  the  4  lyre  ’  is  first  mentioned.  But  a  distinc¬ 
tion  is  sometimes  drawn  between  the  ‘  lyre  ’  and  the  cithara. 
While  the  4  lyre  ’  (with  projecting  4  horns  ’  and  with  a  simple 
equivalent  for  the  original  tortoise-shell  body)  is  the  instrument 
depicted  in  the  vase-painting,  and  also  mentioned  in  the  context 
of  the  passage  from  the  Laws1,  it  is  the  4  cithara  ’  (in  which  the 
‘  shell  ’  is  replaced  by  a  wooden  case  and  the  4  horns  ’  superseded 
by  a  prolongation  of  the  case  on  either  side  of  the  strings)  that  is 
mentioned  in  the  passage  from  the  Protagoras.  Elsewhere,  both 
the  instruments  are  mentioned  together2.  But,  although  the  lyre 
and  the  4  cithara  ’,  and  especially  the  former,  were  the  instruments 
ordinarily  used  in  education,  the  poets,  whose  songs  were  set  to 
the  music  of  these  instruments,  were  never  known 
in  the  Athenian  age  as  the  4  lyric  ’  poets,  but  as 
fjL€\o7roLOL,  4 makers  of  /xeA.77’  or  ‘songs’3.  For  the 
earliest  use  of  the  term  4  lyric  ’  we  have  to  wait  until  the  Alex¬ 
andrian  age,  in  which  a  pupil  of  Aristarchus,  the  grammarian 
Dionysius  Thrax4,  refers  to  4  lyric  poetry’;  while,  for  the  first 
mention  of  a  4  melic  ’  poet,  we  have  to  wait  still  longer,  even  until 
the  time  of  Plutarch5  (fl.  8o  a.d.). 

In  contrasting  the  old  and  the  new  style  of  education 
Aristophanes,  in  a  play  whose  date  is  in  or  after 
423  b.c.,  describes  the  master  of  the  good  old  days 
as  making  his  pupils  learn  the  song  of  4  Pallas, 
dread  sacker  of  cities’,  composed  by  Lamprocles  ( c .  476  b.c.),  the 
fellow-pupil  of  Pindar  and  the  instructor  of  Damon6,  or  the 


‘  lyric  ’  or 
‘  melic  ’  poets 


Lamprocles 
and  Phrynis 


1  809  E,  \6pas  apaadai.  2  Plato,  Rep.  399  D. 

3  Also  as  ladapydot  (Bergk,  Gr.  Litt.  ii  117). 

4  Ars  Gramm,  p.  6  /.  10  Uhlig,  XvpLKrj  irol-rjais  (cp.  Smyth’s  Greek  Melic 
Poets ,  p.  xvii  n. ).  Cp.  Varro’s  Relliquiae,  p.  187  Wilmanns,  and  Cicero’s 

Orator,  183. 

5  ii  120  C,  too  /xeXiKov  Uivdapov,  cp.  Plin.  N.H.  vii  89,  192  ;  poematis  melici 
is  found  as  early  as  Cicero,  De  Opt.  Gen.  Or.  r. 

6  IlaXXdda  weputiroXiv ,  Seivav  Qe'ov  £ypeiaj8oLp.ov, 

-rroTLKXrifa  TroXep.a8bKOv,  ayvav 

iraiba  Aids  p.eyaXov  bap.a<nmrov  (cp.  Smyth,  /.  c.  p.  340). 


44 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Alcaeus  and 
Sappho 

Aristotle3: 


Anacreon. 

Simonides 


‘loudly  sounding  strain’  of  Cydides  (or  Cydias  of  Hermione), — 
songs  marked  by  the  grave  and  severe  melody  of  the  olden 
time,  as  contrasted  with  the  difficult  and  complicated  turns  and 
flourishes  of  the  modern  style  of  the  Lesbian  Phrynis1.  Else¬ 
where  he  frequently  denounces  the  dithyrambic  poet,  Cinesias, 
who  with  the  foreigners  Phrynis,  Melanippides  and  Timotheus 
is  also  attacked  by  Pherecrates  in  a  celebrated  passage  preserved 
by  Plutarch2. 

The  study  of  the  ‘  melic  ’  poets  in  the  Athenian  age  may  be 
partly  inferred  from  citations.  A  line  of  Alcaeus 
(fl.  612-580  b.c. )  addressed  to  Sappho  ( fl. .  612), 
and  four  lines  of  her  reply  are  preserved  by 
and  the  famous  palinode  of  Stesichorus  is  quoted 
in  the  Phaedrus  of  Plato4.  Anacreon  of  Teos 
{fl.  530  b.c.)  and  Simonides  of  Ceos  (556-468  b.c.) 
were  both  invited  to  Athens  by  Hipparchus.  As 
the  singer  of  love  and  wine,  Anacreon  does  not  lend  himself 
either  for  purposes  of  education,  or  for  quotation  by  grave 
philosophers  or  orators.  He  is  the  poet  of  the  symposium.  The 
sweetness  of  his  melodies  is  mentioned  by  Aristophanes5,  who 
couples  his  name  with  that  of  Ibycus  of  Samos  {fl.  544  b.c.).  A 
much  more  serious  poet  is  Simonides.  A  popular  definition  of 
justice  as  ‘paying  one’s  debts’,  ascribed  to  Simonides,  is  criticised 
in  the  Republic 6.  In  the  Protagoras ,  one  of  his  poems  is  selected 
by  Protagoras  as  a  thesis  for  discussion7.  In  that  poem  the 
Sophist  professes  to  find  a  contradiction.  The  poet  first  says, 

‘  hard  it  is  for  a  man  to  become  good  ’ ;  and  then  inconsistently 
reproaches  Pittacus  for  saying,  ‘  hard  it  is  to  be  good  ’.  The 
solution  offered  by  Socrates,  who  draws  a  distinction  between 
being  and  becoming,  is  probably  ‘a  caricature  of  the  methods  of 
interpretation  ’  practised  by  the  Sophists,  and  the  discussion  on 
the  passage  as  a  whole  may  be  ‘  regarded  as  Plato’s  satire  on  the 


1  Ar.  Clouds ,  966 — 972. 

2  De  Musica ,  p.  1 141  §  30  (on  Phrynis,  cp.  Smyth,  p.  lxvi,  on  Melanippides 
and  Timotheus,  ib.  454,  462). 

3  Rhet.  i  9  (cp.  Smyth,  p.  239). 

4  243  a  ;  cp.  Rep.  586  c. 

5  Thesm.  16 1.  6  i  P*  33 1  D — E> 

7  P-  339  (Smyth,  pp.  54,  309). 


III.] 


SIMONIDES  AND  PINDAR. 


45 


tedious  and  hypercritical  arts  of  interpretation  which  prevailed  in 
his  own  day’1.  His  elegiac  epigram  on  those  who  fell  at  Marathon 
is  quoted  by  Lycurgus2,  who  also  quotes  one  of  his  two  epigrams 
on  the  heroes  of  Thermopylae,  both  of  which  are  quoted  by 
Herodotus3.  In  none  of  these  cases  is  the  name  of  the  author 
mentioned,  though  the  epigram  on  the  seer  Megistias  is  expressly 
ascribed  to  Simonides.  The  opening  line  of  his  ode  in  honour  of 
the  victory  in  the  mule-race  won  by  Anaxilas  of  Rhegium,  or 
possibly  by  his  son,  is  quoted  by  Aristotle  as  an  example  of  the 
use  of  epithets  to  lend  elevation  to  a  subject : — 44  When  the  victor 
in  the  mule-race  offered  him  a  small  fee,  he  declined  to  compose 
the  ode  in  honour  of  the  victory  on  the  ground  that  he  was 
shocked  at  the  thought  of  writing  on  the  subject  of  semi-asses ; 
but  when  the  victor  actually  gave  him  sufficient  pay,  he  wrote  : — 
i  Hail  to  the  brood  of  the  storm-footed  coursers’4.” 

The  Theban  Pindar  (< c .  522-443  b.c.)  must  have  been  popular 
at  Athens,  not  because  he  celebrated  the  Pythian 

...  Pindar 

victory  of  Megacles  the  Alcmaeomd5,  but  because 
he  recognised  Salamis  as  the  glory  of  the  Athenians6,  and  Athens 
herself  as  £  the  gleaming  city  of  the  violet  crown  ’  and  4  the 
bulwark  of  Hellas’7.  It  is  said  that  in  consequence  of  these 
praises  of  Athens,  Pindar  was  fined  by  his  countrymen,  but  that 
the  Athenians  paid  the  poet  twice  the  amount  of  the  fine  and  set 
up  a  statue  of  bronze  in  his  honour8.  Pindar  is  repeatedly 
quoted  by  Plato,  for  example  in  the  Meno ,  where  he  is  counted  as 
one  of  the  4  divine  poets  ’,  and  a  splendid  passage  is  cited  from  his 
dirges9.  The  lines  on  the  reign  of  Law  seem  to  have  been 
Plato’s  favourite  quotation,  for  he  refers  to  them  in  the  Protagoi'as , 
the  Gorgias  and  the  Symposium ,  and  also  in  the  Laws10.  The 

1  Jowett’s  Plato,  i  1131,  1243. 

2  Leocr.  109.  3  vii  228. 

4  Rhet.  iii  2,  14,  xaLP€T'  adXXoirobuv  dtiyarpe s  tiriruv. 

5  Pyth.  vii.  6  Pyth.  i  75. 

7  Frag.  46,  at  re  Xnrapai  /cat  loorecpavoi  Kai  aoiSipioi,  'EAAa dos  Zpeicr/na, 

icXeival  ’Adavai,  5aip.6vLov  irroXUd pov ,  cp.  Nem.  iv  1 8,  Isth.  ii  20,  and  Aristoph. 

Ach.  636 — 640. 

8  [Aeschin.]  Ep.  iv  (Donaldson’s  Pindar  p.  346);  cp.  Isocr.  Antid.  166. 

9  Meno ,  p.  81  B. 

10  Frag.  1 5 1,  vbpios  6  tt&vtiov  ffacnXei/s  ktX. 


4  6 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


same  passage  is  cited  by  Herodotus1,  and  by  the  rhetorician 
Alcidamas2.  Pindar  was  held  in  honour  all  over  the  Greek 
world.  He  was  early  known  in  Thessaly,  as  well  as  in  his  native 
Thebes  and  in  Orchomenus ;  one  at  least  of  his  odes  was  familiar 
to  Tenedos ;  he  was  still  more  famous  in  Aegina ;  he  was  not 
unknown  at  Argos  and  Sicyon  and  Corinth ;  his  name  must  have 
lived  on  the  lips  of  men  at  the  scenes  of  the  celebration  of  the 
great  Greek  games,  at  the  Isthmus  and  at  Nemea,  at  Delphi  and 
Olympia.  He  was  bound  by  the  ties  of  hospitality  with  the 
Achaeans  dwelling  above  the  Ionian  sea  on  the  Thesprotian 
border  of  Epirus3,  where  The  mountain-pastures  sweep  downwards 
from  Dodona  to  the  Ionian  main’4.  His  fame  extended  to  the 
western  as  well  as  the  eastern  Locrians ;  in  the  south-east  to 
distant  Cyrene,  and  in  the  west,  as  far  as  Himera  and  Camarina 
and  Acragas  and  Syracuse.  The  lines  of  the  Sixth  Olympian  ode 
bidding  men  ‘  remember  Syracuse  and  Ortygia,  where  Hieron 
ruleth  with  unsullied  sceptre  and  with  perfect  counsel,  while  he 
tendeth  not  only  the  worship  of  Demeter  with  her  ruddy  feet,  and 
the  festival  of  her  daughter,  Persephone,  with  her  white  horses, 
but  also  the  might  of  Zeus,  the  lord  of  Aitna’,  have  been  found 
stamped  on  an  ancient  brick  at  Syracuse,  possibly  by  Hieron’s 
own  order5;  and  the  Seventh  Olympian  in  honour  of  the  most 

famous  of  Greek  boxers,  Diagoras  of  Rhodes,  was  inscribed  in 

* 

golden  letters  in  the  temple  of  Athene  in  the  Rhodian  town  of 
Lindos6.  Pindar  composed  an  encomium  in  honour  of  the 
Macedonian  king,  Alexander  ‘the  Philhellene’7;  and,  one  hundred 
and  fifty  years  afterwards,  at  the  sack  of  Thebes  (335  b.c.),  it  was 
in  memory  perhaps  of  that  encomium  that  another  Alexander, 

1  Her.  iii  38.  2  Arist.  Rhet.  iii  3  §  3. 

3  Nem.  vii  64  f. 

4  Nem.  iv  52  f. 

5  01.  vi  93 — 96;  Zeitschr.  f.  Alterth.  1846,  p.  616;  Bergk  ad  loc. ;  and 

Freeman’s  Sicily ,  ii  539. 

6  Gorgon  ap.  Schol.  Cp.  A.  Croiset,  Le pot sie  de  Pindare,  p.  18.  C.  Graux, 
Rev.  de  Phil,  v  1 1 7  {  =  Notices  Bibl.  302),  supposes  that  the  ode  was  written  in 
gold  ink  on  the  inner  surface  of  a  little  roll  of  parchment  or  fine  leather 
(Gildersleeve’s  Pindar ,  p.  184). 

7  Frag.  121  [86]. 


III.] 


PINDAR  AND  BACCHYLIDES. 


4  7 


‘  The  great  Emathian  conqueror,  bid  spare 
The  house  of  Pindarus,  when  temple  and  tower 
Went  to  the  ground  ’ L. 

Of  the  rest  of  the  nine  principal  ‘  melic  ’  poets  of  Greece 
neither  the  earliest,  Aleman  of  Sparta  (/ i .  657  b.c.), 
nor  the  latest,  Bacchylides  of  Ceos  {fl.  476-452),  is  Bacchybdes 
quoted  by  any  of  the  authors  of  the  Athenian  age.  Bacchylides, 
however,  and  his  uncle,  Simonides,  are  supposed  to  have  been  in 
Pindar’s  mind  in  a  well-known  passage  of  the  Second  Olympian, 
in  honour  of  Theron : — ‘  many  swift  arrows  have  I  beneath  my 
bended  arm  within  my  quiver,  arrows  vocal  to  the  intelligent 
(^wraevra  oweTouru/),  though  for  their  full  meaning  they  need 
interpreters.  Wise  is  he  that  knoweth  much  by  nature;  but, 
when  men  have  merely  learnt  their  lore,  they  are  turbulent  and 
intemperate  of  tongue,  even  as  a  pair  of  crows  idly  chattering 
(yapveTov)  against  the  divine  bird  of  Zeus’  {01.  ii  91-97).  But 
time  has  brought  some  compensation  to  Bacchylides.  We  now 
know  that,  in  the  ode  in  honour  of  an  Olympian  victory  of 
Hieron  won  in  the  same  year  as  that  of  Theron  (476  b.c.),  Pindar's 
rival  compared  his  own  range  of  flight  to  that  of  an  eagle  (v  16 — 
27);  and  that,  in  celebrating  another  victory  of  Hieron  eight 
years  afterwards  (468  b.c.),  he  too  could  say :  ‘  I  utter  words 
intelligible  to  the  prudent  ’  (iii  85,  <j>poveovTL  awera  yapvw). 

In  Aristotle’s  treatise  on  poetry  (1  §  2),  mention  is  made  of 
‘dithyrambic  poetry’,  and  ‘the  music  of  the  flute  and  the  cithara ’ ; 
but  in  that  treatise,  in  its  present  form,  lyric  poetry  is  never 
discussed.  The  author,  however,  was  not  necessarily  unsym¬ 
pathetic  towards  this  kind  of  composition.  We  still  possess 
a  grave  and  dignified  ode  to  Virtue  written  by  Aristotle  him¬ 
self1 2. 

The  lyric  poetry  of  Greece  may  be  conveniently  regarded  as 
including  not  only  the  ‘melic’  but  also  the  ‘elegiac’  and  ‘iambic’ 
poets.  All  alike  were  associated  with  song,  and  were  generally 
accompanied  by  music,  the  instrument,  in  the  case  of  ‘  melic  ’ 
poets,  being  the  lyre  or  the  cithara,  and  in  the  case  of  ‘  elegiac  ’ 


1  Milton,  Sonnet  8;  cp.  Pliny  vii  109;  Aelian,  Var.  Hist,  xiii  7. 

2  ap.  Athen.  695  A  (Smyth,  pp.  142,  468). 


48 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Elegiac  poets. 
Tyrtaeus 


Mimnermus 


and  ‘iambic’  poets  the  flute1.  Of  the  elegiac  poets,  one  of  the 
earliest  (in  the  ordinary  view)  is  Tyrtaeus  ( fl .  685- 
668  b.c.).  His  poem  on  Good  Government  (Eu- 
nomia)  is  specially  mentioned  by  Aristotle,  while 
not  less  than  thirty-two  lines  from  his  spirited  and  stirring 
Exhortations  are  quoted  in  court  by  the  orator  Lycurgus.  Two 
other  portions  of  the  same  poem  are  embodied  in  passages  in  the 
Laws  of  Plato,  where  their  author  is  called  a  ‘  most  divine  poet  ’, 
though  Plato  regrets  that  personal  bravery  in  battle  is  the  only 
kind  of  virtue  that  wins  his  praise2.  Mimnermus 
of  Smyrna  ( fl .  620  b.c.)  is  partly  a  political  and 
still  more  a  sentimental  poet.  He  sighs  as  he  prays: — ‘Ah! 
that  from  sickness  safe  and  bitter  cares,  Death  may  o’ertake  me, 
e’en  at  sixty  years  ’  (frag.  6).  The  sentiment  meets  with  a  protest 
from  the  sturdy  good  sense  of  Solon  who,  addressing  Mimnermus, 
says : — “  But,  if,  even  now,  you  will  take  my  advice,  erase  this ; 
nor  bear  me  any  ill-will  for  having  thought  on  this  theme  better 
than  you ;  emend  the  words,  Ligyastades,  and  sing :  ‘  May  death 
o’ertake  me,  e’en  at  eighty  years  ’  ”  (frag.  20).  In 
Solon’s  case,  the  prayer  was  apparently  answered, 
for  he  seems  to  have  died  at  the  age  of  eighty  (c.  639-559).  In 
his  poems  elegiac  and  iambic  verse  are  alike  represented.  Among 
his  elegiacs  are  some  forty  lines  of  a  vigorous  and  patriotic  poem 
on  Athens,  which  Demosthenes  calls  upon  the  clerk  of  the  court 
to  read  aloud  in  the  course  of  the  speech  for  the  prosecution  of 
Aeschines,  and  also  two  or  three  passages,  probably  from  the 
same  poem,  which  Aristotle  quotes  in  his  Constitution  of  Athens, 
together  with  thirty-five  iambic  lines  on  his  political  reforms,  and 
nine  trochaic  lines  on  the  same  topic.  In  his  Rhetoric  he  quotes 
a  single  line  of  admonition  to  Critias.  Plato  cites  a  couplet  in 
the  Lysis ,  without  the  author’s  name,  and  elsewhere  mentions 
Solon  and  his  contemporaries3. 

In  the  Titnaeus  in  particular  Critias  (who  died  in  404  b.c.) 


Solon 


1  Cp.  Jebb’s  Growth  and  Influence  of  Classical  Greek  Poetry ,  pp.  108,  117, 
122. 

2  Arist.  Pol.  v  6,  2;  Lycurg.  Leocr.  107;  Plato,  Laws  629  a,  e,  660  E. 

3  Dem.  19  §  255;  Arist.  Const.  Ath.  c.  5  and  12;  Rhet.  i  15;  Plato,  Lys. 
212  E,  Charmid.  157  F,  Tim.  20  E  and  esp.  21  B — c. 


III.] 


ELEGIAC  POETRY. 


49 


recalls  an  incident  which  happened  when  he  was  a  boy  of  about 
ten  years  of  age.  It  was  on  the  day  of  the  Apaturia  set  apart  for 
the  registration  of  boys;  and,  in  accordance  with  the  custom  of 
that  festival,  parents  gave  prizes  for  recitation  (pai/^wSm),  many 
poems  were  recited,  and  among  them  £  many  of  us  boys  sang  the 
poems  of  Solon,  which  were  new  at  the  time  ’  (i.e.  recently 
introduced  into  public  recitations).  Someone  said  to  the  boy’s 
grandfather,  a  contemporary  and  relation  of  Solon’s,  that,  in  his 
judgment,  Solon  was  ‘  not  only  the  wisest  of  men,  but  also  the 
noblest  of  poets  ’.  The  old  man  smiled  and  said  that,  ‘  if  Solon 
had  only  made  poetry  the  business  of  his  life, ...he  would  have 
been  as  famous  as  Homer  or  Hesiod,  or  any  poet  ’. 

The  elegiac  epigrammatists  Demodocus  of  Leros  and  Phocylides 
of  Miletus  (jtl.  537  b.c.)  are  cited  by  Aristotle  in  phocylides. 
the  Ethics  (vii  9)  and  Politics  (iv  11,  9)  respectively,  The°sms 
the  former  passage  describing  the  character  of  the  Milesians,  and 
the  latter  the  advantage  of  belonging  to  the  middle  classes. 
Theognis  of  Megara  {fl.  540  b.c.)  is  commended  in  Plato’s  Laws 
for  eulogising  political  loyalty,  and  is  paraphrased  in  the  Meno , 
while  his  proverbial  sayings  are  quoted  by  Xenophon  and  Aris¬ 
totle1.  Most  of  his  verses  are  of  a  political,  and  indeed  intensely 
aristocratical,  type,  and  they  could  hardly  be  expected  to  be 
popular  in  democratic  Athens.  The  only  evidence  adduced  to 
show  that  he  was  one  of  the  standard  school-authors  is  the 
proverbial  line : — ‘  7'hat  indeed  I  knew  before  Theognis  was 
born  ’2.  All  that  this  proves  is  that  his  moral  maxims  were  often 
quoted  and  had  long  been  very  trite.  They  seem  to  have 
inspired  much  of  the  worldly  wisdom  of  Isocrates,  who  names 
Theognis  (with  Hesiod  and  Phocylides)  as  a  wise  counsellor  who 
was  neglected  in  comparison  with  the  comic  poets  of  the  day 
(2  §  43).  His  lighter  verses  were  expressly  meant  to  be  sung  at 
the  sy?nposium  to  the  strains  of  flutes,  and  a  phrase  from  one  of 
them  has  actually  been  found  inscribed  on  a  wine-cup  of  Tanagra3. 

1  Plato,  Laws  630,  Meno  95  E;  Xen.  Mem.  i  2,  20,  Symp.  ii  5;  Arist. 
Eth.  i  8,  x  9. 

2  tovt'l  flew  ydeiv  irpiv  Qtoyviv  yeyovtvcu  (Dousa  ad  Lucil.  frag,  incert.  102, 
quoted  by  Grafenhan,  i  71);  Plut.  Mor.  ii  777.  Cp.  Schomann,  Op.  iv  25  f. 

3  1365,  w  7 raiduv  KaXXiare,  cp.  241  {;  Christ,  Gr.  Litt.  §  901,  §  1003. 

4 


s. 


50 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


The  foremost  of  the  early  iambic  poets,  Archilochus  of  Paros 
( fl .  650),  though  ranked  with  Homer  by  the 
Archilochus tS  ancients,  is  described  by  Pindar,  at  a  distance  of 

two  centuries,  as  ‘  the  bitter-tongued  Archilochus, 
who  fell  full  often  into  distress  by  battening  on  virulent  abuse  of 
his  enemies’  ( Pyth .  ii  55).  Pindar  also  mentions  ‘the  chant  of 
Archilochus,  vocal  at  Olympia,  even  the  song  of  victory,  swelling 
with  its  thrice-repeated  refrain  ’,  which,  in  the  absence  of  any 
special  ode,  was  sung  as  the  ancient  counterpart  of  our  modern 
strain  of  victory  : — ‘  See  the  conquering  hero  comes  Archi¬ 
lochus  is  twice  imitated  by  Aristophanes1,  twice  quoted  by 
Aristotle2,  and  twice  in  the  Platonic  dialogues3.  His  poems  were 
recited  by  rhapsodes,  and  sung  to  music  like  those  of  Homer  and 
Hesiod,  Mimnermus  and  Phocylides4.  The  other  ‘iambic’  poets, 
Semonides  of  Amorgos  and  Hipponax  of  Ephesus,  are  not  quoted 
in  the  Athenian  age.  The  ‘  iambics  ’  of  Solon  have  been  already 
noticed  (p.  48). 

It  must  not  be  inferred  from  the  limited  range  of  the  quo¬ 
tations  from  the  elegiac,  iambic  and  melic  poets  in  the  Athenian 
age,  that  those  poets  were  comparatively  unknown.  Almost  all 
of  their  poetry  was  ‘  occasional  ’ ;  much  of  it  was  ephemeral ; 
and  few  besides  Pindar  could  say: — ‘longer  than  deeds  liveth 
the  word’  ( Nem .  iv  6).  Many  however  of  their  poems  played 
a  part  in  the  private  life  of  Athens,  either  in  the  school,  or  at 
the  symposium ,  or  both.  Elegiac  poetry  lasted  for  sixteen  cen¬ 
turies,  beginning  with  Callinus  ( c .  690  b.c.)  and  ending  with 
the  Greek  Anthology  of  Constantinus  Cephalas  ( c .  920  *a.d.). 
In  the  Greek  drama  this  metre  is  only  used  once,  in  the  lament 
of  Andromache  (Eur.  Andr.  103-116);  but  iambic  poetry  found 
a  fresh  lease  of  life  in  the  dialogue,  and  melic  in  the  chorus  of 
the  drama ;  while  the  epic  poetry  of  narration  survived  in  the  mes¬ 
senger’s  speeches  of  Greek  tragedy.  The  canon  of  Greek  lyric 
poetry  closes  in  452  b.c.,  the  date  of  the  last  known  odes  of 
Pindar  and  Bacchylides.  Meanwhile  the  personal  and  reflective 

1  Ranae  704,  Pax  603. 

2  Pol.  vii  6,  3,  Rhet.  iii  17. 

3  Rep.  365  c,  Eryx.  397  E. 

4  Athen.  620. 


III.] 


IAMBIC  POETRY. 


51 


interest,  which  lyric  poetry  had  excited  in  the  individual,  had 
begun  to  abate  in  the  presence  of  the  public  enthusiasm  aroused 
in  vast  audiences  by  the  drama.  Aeschylus  had  won  his  first 
tragic  prize  in  484  b.c.  ;  Sophocles  in  468,  about  the  time  of 
the  death  of  Simonides ;  and  Euripides  in  442,  about  the  time 
of  the  death  of  Pindar;  while  the  year  450  is  the  approximate 
date  of  the  successes  gained  in  the  Old  Attic  Comedy  by  Crates 
and  Cratinus,  and  also  of  the  birth  of  Aristophanes. 


Masks  of  Comedy  and  Tragedy. 


(From  the  British  Museum.) 


4—2 


CHAPTER  IV. 


THE  STUDY  AND  CRITICISM  OF  DRAMATIC  POETRY. 


Dramatic 
poetry  and 
literary 
criticism 


Literary  criticism  was  promoted  at  Athens  not  only  by 
the  epic  recitations  of  the  rhapsodes  (p.  20),  but  also  by  the 
contests  for  the  prizes  offered  for  lyric,  and  much  more  by  those 
for  dramatic  poetry.  But  such  criticism  was  purely  of  a  popular 
and  unprofessional  kind.  The  contests  of  the 
drama  were  at  first  decided  by  acclamation,  and 
the  voice  of  the  people  awarded  the  prize.  Sub¬ 
sequently  the  decision  was  made  by  five  judges 
in  comic,  and  probably  the  same  number  in  tragic,  contests. 
This  small  number  of  judges  was  appointed  by  lot,  out  of  a 
large  preliminary  list  elected  by  vote.  It  speaks  well  for  the 
general  competence  of  the  judges  that  Aeschylus  and  Sophocles 
were  usually  successful ;  but,  strange  to  say,  at  the  presentation 
of  the  Oedipus  Tyrannies,  Sophocles  was  defeated  by  a  minor 
poet,  Philocles,  a  nephew  of  Aeschylus.  Euripides  won  the  prize 
on  five  occasions  only,  while  Aeschylus  is  credited  with  thirteen 
victories,  and  Sophocles  with  at  least  eighteen.  The  decisions 
pronounced  by  the  judges  on  such  occasions  were  not  without 
their  effect  in  leading  to  the  improvement  of  plays  which  were 
unsuccessful  at  their  first  presentation.  The  revision  and  repro¬ 
duction  of  unsuccessful  plays  was  not  an  uncommon  practice1. 

Dramatic  criticism  occasionally  found  its  wray  into  the  plays 
themselves.  Euripides,  in  his  Eledra  (1.  522-544),  openly  criti¬ 
cises  the  means  adopted  by  Aeschylus  in  the  Cho'ephoroe  for 


1  Egger,  Hist,  de  la  Critique ,  p.  26  f. 


CHAP.  IV.]  CRITICISM  IN  ATTIC  COMEDY. 


53 


bringing  about  the  recognition  of  Orestes  by  his  sister.  Such 

criticism,  singularly  out  Qf  place  in  tragedy,  was 

more  frequent  and  more  appropriate  in  comedy.  Atti^Comedy 

More  than  sixty  years  after  the  memorable  occasion, 

when  the  contest  between  Aeschylus  and  Sophocles  had  been 

decided  for  the  first  time  in  favour  of  the  latter  by  the  verdict  of 

Cimon  and  his  colleagues  (468  b.c.),  the  comic 

poet,  Phrynichus,  represented  the  nine  Muses  0fTphrynichus 

themselves  as  assembled  in  court  to  decide  on  the 

respective  merits  of  the  tragic  poets,  and  passed  an  encomium  on 

the  dramatic  career  of  Sophocles1. 

On  the  above  occasion  the  Muses  of  Phrynichus  competed 
with  the  play  familiar  to  ourselves  under  the  name 
of  the  Frogs  of  Aristophanes  (405  b.c.).  In  that  Aristophane^ 
play,  it  will  be  remembered  that  Sophocles  takes 
no  part  in  the  contest  for  the  throne  of  Tragedy.  Aeschylus  and 
Euripides  enter  the  lists  and  criticise  passages  in  one  another’s 
plays.  These  criticisms  extend  over  nearly  three  hundred  lines 
(1119-1413),  but  a  very  brief  analysis  will  here  suffice. 

Euripides  begins  by  taking  Aeschylus  to  task  for  his  bombastic  style, 
while  Aeschylus  criticises  his  rival’s  prologues.  Euripides  next  claims  credit 
for  making  Tragedy  more  familiar,  more  domestic ;  Aeschylus,  for  inspiring 
his  countrymen  with  a  patriotic  spirit  by  means  of  martial  plays,  such  as 
the  Seven  against  Thebes  and  the  Persae.  He  also  taunts  his  opponent  with 
bringing  on  to  the  stage  not  only  women  with  strange  passions,  but  also 
fallen  kings  in  rags  and  tatters.  Thereupon  Euripides  attacks  the  opening 
lines  of  the  Cho'ephoroe ,  finding  fault  (among  other  things)  with  one  or  two 
tautological  phrases,  ‘listen’  and  ‘hear’,  and  ‘I  have  come’  and  ‘I  revisit’2. 
In  the  latter  case  Aeschylus  triumphantly  retorts  that  the  second  verb  is  rightly 
added,  being  particularly  appropriate  to  return  from  exile.  Aeschylus  rejoins 
with  an  attack  on  Euripides  for  the  monotony  of  his  prologues,  and  ridicules  the 
too  frequent  recurrence  of  the  pause  after  the  fifth  syllable  of  the  iambic  line, 
adding  to  all  the  verses  in  which  this  pause  occurs,  and  in  which  the  gram¬ 
matical  construction  allows,  a  burlesque  and  trivial  conclusion, — ‘lost  his 
little  flask  of  oil  ’  ( Xr)KvOiov  curuXeoev),  by  which  the  poet’s  tragic  phrase 

1  Egger, /.  c.  p.  38  f;  cp.  Fragmenta  Comicorum  Graecorum  ii  592  Meineke, 
p.a<ap  ’LocpoKXlrjs,  os  TroXbv  XP^V0 v  fiiovs  |  airldavev,  ebdai/jLCjv  avT)p  Kal 
5e|i6s,  |  7roXXas  iroi-qaas  Kal  KaXas  rpayipdias'  |  xaXws  5’  ireXebT^a',  ovdtv 
virop.elvas  kolk6v. 

2  1 128,  t}ku>  yap  els  yijv  rrjvde  Kal  Kartpxoiaai. 


54 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


is  made  to  end  in  bathos.  Euripides  in  reply  attacks  the  choruses  of 
Aeschylus,  stringing  together  a  number  of  pompous  phrases,  and  criticising 
their  obscurity,  their  ponderous  metres,  and  their  monotonous  refrains.  Aes¬ 
chylus  returns  the  compliment  with  a  series  of  affectedly  pretty  verses  from 
the  choruses  of  Euripides,  exemplifying  (among  other  things)  his  innovations 
in  choral  music  and  metre.  He  next  parodies  his  rival’s  monodies,  in  choral 
lines  combining  the  false  sublime  with  the  vulgar  pathetic,  and  both  with 
impertinent  appeals  to  the  help  of  Heaven.  Lastly,  the  two  poets  put  their 
verses  to  the  test  of  the  balance.  A  large  pair  of  scales  is  produced ; 
Aeschylus  stands  beside  one  of  the  scales  and  Euripides  by  the  other ;  each 
in  turn  repeats  a  single  line  from  one  of  his  own  plays,  and  the  scale  is 
supposed  to  rise  or  fall,  according  as  the  sense  of  the  line  is  light  or  heavy. 
In  the  end  Aeschylus,  weary  of  competing  line  against  line,  challenges 
Euripides  to  a  final  and  comprehensive  contest.  With  the  challenge  he 
combines  a  sly  allusion  to  the  help  that  Euripides  was  supposed  to  derive  from 
his  slave  Cephisophon  in  the  composition  of  his  plays,  and  to  the  book¬ 
learning  already  noticed  in  a  line  describing  him,  as  ‘  from  learned  scrolls 
distilling  the  essence  of  his  wit’  (943)  : — 

Come  !  no  more  line  for’  line  !  Let  him  bring  all , — 

His  wife,  his  children,  his  Cephisophon, 

And  mount  the  scale  himself,  with  all  his  books. 

I  shall  outweigh  them  with  two  lines  alone. 

Dionysus,  the  arbiter  of  this  conflict  of  wits,  finally  decides  in  favour  of 
Aeschylus,  who  is  accordingly  brought  back  to  the  upper  world.  In  the 
ensuing  chorus  (1482-1499)  Aristophanes  dwells  on  the  triumphant  recall 
of  Aeschylus  as  a  tribute  to  the  good  taste  and  sound  sense  characteristic 
of  the  true  poet,  while  the  fate  of  Euripides  is  a  warning  that  it  is  not  well 
to  sit  and  chatter  with  Socrates,  denouncing  the  art  of  poetry  and  neglecting 
the  noblest  aims  of  the  tragic  art. 

The  passing  attack  on  Socrates  does  not  fairly  apply  to  the 
Socrates  whom  we  know  in  Plato  ;  but,  in  the  controversy  as 
a  whole,  we  feel  that,  although  the  author  is  clearly  prejudiced 
against  Euripides,  the  points  selected  for  criticism  on  both  sides 
are  both  interesting  and  instructive.  The  criticism  of  Aris¬ 
tophanes  (as  has  been  well  observed)  “  rests  upon  a  reasoned 
view  of  art  and  taste  as  well  as  of  politics  and  religion.  He 
disapproves  the  sceptical  purpose,  the  insidious  sophistic,  the 
morbid  passion  of  his  victim ;  but  he  disapproves  quite  as 
strongly  the  tedious  preliminary  explanations  and  interpolated 
narratives,  the  ‘  precious  ’  sentiment  and  style,  the  tricks  and 
the  trivialities ”.  Yet  he  ‘is  far  too  good  a  critic  and  far  too 


IV.] 


CRITICISM  IN  ATTIC  COMEDY. 


55 


shrewd  a  man  not  to  allow  a  pretty  full  view  of  the  Aeschylean 
defects,  as  well  as  to  put  in  the  mouth  of  Euripides  himself  a 
very  fairly  strong  defence  of  his  own  merits  \  Notwithstanding 
this  signally  effective  dramatic  example  of  the  ‘direct  criticism 
of  actual  texts  ’,  it  is  remarkable  that  ‘  formal  criticism  in  prose  ’ 
was  long  in  making  its  appearance,  and  when  it  appeared 
showed  ‘much  less  mastery  of  method’1. 

The  traces  of  literary  criticism  preserved  in  the  fragments 
of  Attic  Comedy  are  neither  very  numerous  nor  very  trustworthy. 
Hesiod  was  quoted  and  parodied  in  the  Cheiron  of  Pherecrates, 
a  play  in  which  Music  complains  of  the  maltreatment  she  has 
received  from  some  of  the  lyrical  composers  of  the  day2.  In 
the  Hesiodi  of  Telecleides  we  have  some  references  to  contempo¬ 
rary  poets,  and  a  passage  on  Euripides,  referring  to  his  being 
aided  in  his  tragedies  by  Mnesilochus  and  Socrates,  possibly 
comes  from  this  play3.  Other  plays  of  the  Old  Comedy,  like 
the  Ti'agedians  of  Phrynichus  and  the  Poets  of  Plato,  were 
possibly  concerned  with  literary  criticism.  The  lovers  of  Euripides 
were  satirised  in  the  Phileuripides  of  Axionicus4,  and  of  Phi- 
lippus  or  Philippides5.  Sappho  was  the  title  of  six  plays ;  of 
four  of  these  we  know  next  to  nothing ;  but  in  that  of  Antip'hanes6 
she  was  represented  as  propounding  and  solving  riddles ;  and' 
in  that  of  Diphilus7,  as  having  among  her  admirers  Archilochus, 
who  flourished  forty  years  before  her  time,  and  Hipponax,  seventy 
years  after  it.  In  the  case  of  Sappho  in  particular,  any  inference 
that  we  may  draw  from  the  mere  titles  of  such  plays,  must 
necessarily  be  uncertain. 

There  is  a  passage  in  the  comic  poet  Timocles,  humorously 
describing  the  consolations  enjoyed  by  the  spectator  of  a  tragedy 
who  finds  his  own  troubles  lightened  by  the  contemplation  of 

1  Saintsbury’s  History  of  Criticism,  i  p.  2  2  f.  See  also  Jebb’s  Classical 
Greek  Poetry ,  pp.  230 — 3.  The  terseness  of  Euripides  was  appreciated  by 
Aristophanes  (frag.  397  d). 

2  Athen.  364  a,  b;  Plut.  De  Musica ,  §  30;  cp.  Meineke,  Fr.  Com.  Gr.  II 
334  f;  Egger,  /.  c.,  39. 

3  Meineke,  1  88,  11  371.  4  Athen.  175  B  (Meineke,  1  417). 

5  Meineke,  1  341,  474. 

6  ib.  277  f. 

7  ib.  447. 


56 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


the  troubles  of  others  in  the  play.  There  is  also  a  passage  from 
the  Poiesis  of  Antiphanes,  insisting  that  Tragedy  is  far  easier 
to  write  than  Comedy  because  in  Tragedy  the  story  is  already 
familiar  to  the  audience1.  But  neither  of  these  passages  really 
contains  any  literary  criticism.  It  is  far  otherwise  with  the  very 
striking  fragment  ascribed  to  Simulus  (a  comic  poet  about  399 
b.c.),  which  is  welcomed  with  enthusiasm  by  an  excellent  judge 
of  literary  criticism,  as  advancing  ‘  not  only  a  theory  of  poetry 
and  poetical  criticism,  but  one  of  such  astonishing  completeness 
that  it  goes  far  beyond  anything  that  we  find  in  Aristotle,  and 
is  worthy  of  Longinus  himself  at  his  very  happiest  moment’2. 
I  offer  the  following  rendering : 

Nature  of  Art  bereft  will  not  suffice 
For  any  work  whate’er  in  all  the  world; 

Nor  Art  again,  devoid  of  Nature’s  aid. 

And,  e’en  if  Art  and  Nature  join  in  one, 

The  poet  still  must  find  the  ways  and  means, 

Passion,  and  practice;  happy  chance  and  time; 

A  critic  skilled  to  seize  the  poet’s  sense. 

For,  if  in  aught  of  these  he  haply  fail, 

He  cannot  gain  the  goal  of  all  his  hopes. 

Nature,  good  will,  and  pains,  and  ordered  grace 
Make  poets  wise  and  good,  while  length  of  years 
Will  make  them  older  men,  but  nothing  more3. 

i 

The  philosopher  Xenocrates,  when  attacked  by  Bion,  declined 
to  defend  himself ;  ‘Tragedy’  (he  said),  ‘when  satirised  by  Comedy, 

1  Athen.  vi  222  A,  223  B. 

2  Saintsbury’s  History  of  Criticism,  i  25. 

3  Stobaeus,  60,  4,  otfre  (pvais  iravyj  yiyverai  t£xv V*  are/j  |  irpos  ovSev  eiriT-rj- 
8evpa  rrapdirav  ov8evL,  |  oiire  iraXi  Tiyyi j  po 7  (pvaiv  KeKrrjpfrirj.  \  toijtuv  opolws  t&v 
Svoiv  avvrjypfriov  |  eis  ravrov,  fri  8ei  7 rpoaXafteiv  x°PV7 'Lavi  I  fywra,  peXfrrjv, 
Kcupov  €u<pV7j,  X9^vovi  I  KpLTTjv  rb  prjdfr  Svvapevov  cvvapirdacu..  |  iv  tp  yap  cLv 
Toiiruv  tls  aTToXeupdeis  rOxV,  \  ovk  ’ipx^  ^irL  T&  Hppa  roD  7 rporeipfrov.  |  (ptiais, 
deXrjais,  imp^Xei’,  evra^ia,  |  aocpous  Tidrjai  Kayadotis’  £tu>v  8£  tol  \  apLdpb s  ov8kv 
aXXo  ttXtjv  yijpas  iroLei.  In  1.  6 — 7  Meineke  on  Stob.  (omitting  xp^vov  as 
superfluous)  aptly  suggests  raipov,  ev<pv7j  Kpirrjv,  avav  rb  prjdfr  ktX.  ;  but  ebcpvrj 
Kaipov  occurs  in  Polybius  i  19,  12.  In  Frag.  Com.  Gr.  I  xiii  he  considers  ttoXl 
and  rex^v  in  1.  3,  and  t8  before  prjdfr  in  1.  7,  foreign  to  Attic  Comedy,  and 
identifies  the  author  of  this  and  two  partly  similar  passages  with  a  didactic 
poet  named  Simulus  little  earlier  than  the  Augustan  age.  The  passage  is 
partly  parallel  to  Horace,  A.  P.,  408 — 413. 


IV.] 


THE  TEXT  OF  THE  TRAGIC  POETS. 


5  7 


does  not  deign  to  reply’1.  There  is  in  fact  very  little  evidence 
that  the  attacks  of  the  Comic  poets  led  to  any  changes  in  the 
text  of  the  Tragic  writers.  It  is  possible  that  a  line  in  the  Medea 
may  owe  its  present  form  to  a  jest  in  the  Clouds  of  Aris¬ 
tophanes2.  The  prologues  of  the  Meleager  and  Oeneus  of  Eu¬ 
ripides,  which  were  ridiculed  in  the  Frogs,  were  apparently  altered 
by  Euripides  the  younger  before  those  plays  were  again  put  on 
the  stage3.  That  of  the  Iphigeneia  hi  Aulide  is  not  attacked  by 
Aristophanes ;  in  fact  the  play  was  not  produced  until  after  the 
Frogs 4;  but  it  has  two  alternative  openings: — (i)  a  dialogue  in 
anapaests,  (2)  an  ordinary  Euripidean  prologue.  Possibly  the 
latter  was  superseded  by  the  former  owing  to  the  gibes  of  Aris¬ 
tophanes  against  the  poet’s  prologues  in  general.  A  line  from 
a  scene  in  the  Telephus  of  Euripides  representing  Achilles  playing 
at  dice,  ‘Achilles  has  thrown  twice — Twice  a  deuce  ace’,  quoted 
in  the  Frogs  (1400),  is  said  to  have  been  afterwards  omitted  by 
the  poet,  with  the  whole  of  the  context ;  but  the  omission  cannot 
have  been  due  to  the  Frogs ,  as  Euripides  died  shortly  before 
that  play  was  produced.  Hence  it  was  either  omitted  by  Eu¬ 
ripides  the  younger,  or,  if  by  the  poet  himself,  the  omission 
may  have  been  suggested  by  a  possibly  earlier  attack  by  Eupolis. 

The  plays  of  Aeschylus  were  frequently  reproduced  after  his 
death,  but  in  the  fourth  century  Sophocles  was  more  popular, 
and  finally  Euripides  was  left  without  a  rival.  In  process  of 
time,  alterations  made  by  actors  and  copyists  led  to  uncertainties 
as  to  the  true  text.  A  decree  was  accordingly  carried  by  the 
eminent  Athenian  statesman  and  orator,  Lycurgus  (396-323  b.c.), 
providing,  not  only  for  the  erection  of  bronze  statues  of  the 
three  great  tragic  poets,  but  also  for  the  preservation  of  a  copy 
of  their  tragedies  in  the  public  archives.  The  town-clerk  was 
to  collate  the  actors’  copies  with  this  text,  and  no  departure 
therefrom  was  to  be  allowed  in  acting5.  Possibly  the  manuscript 

1  Diog.  Laert.  iv  §  10. 

2  Eur.  Med.  1317,  tL  raade  nivels  KCti'a/AOxXei/eis  7ruXas  (with  Porson’s  and 
Verrall’s  notes),  Ar.  Clouds  1397,  obv  'Ipyov  u>  kcuvu>v  eirGsv  lavrjTa  Kal  p-ogbevra. 

3  Fritzsche  on  Ar.  Ranae ,  1206. 

4  Introd.  to  my  ed.  of  Eur.  Bacchae ,  p.  xliii. 

5  [Plutarch],  Lives  of  the  Ten  Orators ,  p.  841  F,  ras  rpayipdias  avruv  ev 


58 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


included  only  those  of  the  plays  which  continued  to  be  acted 
after  their  authors’  death.  It  is  said  to  have  been  this  manu¬ 
script  that  was  borrowed  for  the  Alexandrian  Library  by  Ptolemy 
Euergetes  (247  or  146  b.c.),  who  deposited  the  sum  of  fifteen  talents 
as  a  pledge  for  its  safe  return,  but  instead  of  returning  it,  forfeited 
his  pledge,  kept  the  original,  and  sent  the  Athenians  a  sumptuous 
copy  in  its  place1.  If  it  ever  reached  Alexandria  at  all,  it  does 
not  appear  to  have  been  regarded  as  a  final  authority.  Other¬ 
wise  we  should  not  find  mere  conjectures  on  the  part  of  the 
Alexandrian  critic,  Aristophanes,  mentioned  in  the  Scholia  on 
the  Tragic  poets.  It  is  probable  that  the  object  of  Lycurgus 
was  not  so  much  to  restore  the  original  text  of  the  plays,  as 
to  record  the  current  acting-version,  so  as  to  prevent  unauthorised 
departures  from  the  form  which  long  experience  had  approved. 
The  official  copy  thus  supplied  a  test  for  rejecting  alterations 
due  to  actors  of  later  date  than  the  time  of  Lycurgus2. 

The  leading  tragic  poets  are  quoted  as  authorities  by  orators 

Quotations  and  (not  w^^out  occasional  criticism)  by  philoso- 

from  tragic  phers.  Lycurgus  cites  no  less  than  55  lines  from 

poets  the  Erechtheus  of  Euripides,  with  two  shorter  pas¬ 

sages  from  unnamed  tragic  poets3;  Aeschines  (1  §  154)  two  short 
passages  from  Euripides,  and  Demosthenes  (19  §  247)  16  lines 
from  the  Antigo?ie  of  Sophocles  (1 75-190),  as  illustrating  maxims 
of  political  conduct  which  Aeschines  had  violated.  Plato  quotes 
from  Aeschylus  three  passages  of  the  Septern  Contra  Thebas 4,  but 
protests  against  the  language  respecting  Apollo,  which,  in  another 
play,  the  poet  puts  in  the  lips  of  Thetis5.  He  never  quotes  a  line 
from  Sophocles,  while  he  ascribes  to  Euripides  a  line  which  also 


KoivCp  ypa\p  ap.lv  ovs  (f>v\dTT€tv,  Kal  rbv  rijs  7r6Aews  y papparta  7rapavayiyvu)<XKeLV 
tois  vtroKpLvoplvoLS,  ovk  eijeivat.  yap  cirap'  added  by  Grysar>  abras  (at.  aAAws) 
viroKplveadai. 

1  Galen,  in  Hippocratis  Epidem.  in  2.  See  below,  p.  m. 

2  p.  15  of  Korn,  De  publico  Aeschyli  Sophoclis  Euripidis  fabularum  exem¬ 
plar  i  Lycurgo  auctore  confecto ,  Bonn  (1863)  pp.  34;  cp.  Wilamowitz  in 
Hermes  xiv  15 1  and  in  Eur.  Herakles  i  130. 

3  Leocr.  §§  100,  92,  132. 

4  S.  C.  T.  1  ( Euthyd .  291  d),  451  (Rep.  551  c),  592  f  (Rep.  361  B,  362  a). 

5  Rep.  383  B.  Cp.  380  a,  563  c,  Phaedo  180  A,  Symp.  383  B. 


IV.] 


THE  STUDY  OF  THE  DRAMATISTS. 


59 


occurred  in  the  Aias  Locrus  of  the  former1.  In  this  connexion  he 
says  that  ‘people  regard  tragedy  on  the  whole  as  wise,  and 
Euripides  as  a  master,  therein  He  also  quotes  Euripides  twice 
in  the  Gorgias2.  Of  Aristotle  it  is  enough  to  say  that  his  citations 
from  Aeschylus  are  very  few,  those  from  Sophocles  more  numerous, 
while  those  from  Euripides  are  taken  from  as  many  as  ten  of  his 
extant  plays,  not  to  mention  fourteen  others3.  Aristophanes  is 
one  of  the  persons  who  take  part  in  Plato’s  Symposium ,  but  the 
language  of  the  comic  poets  is  very  rarely  quoted  by  the  philoso¬ 
phers,  and  never  by  the  orators. 

To  the  Athenian  the  theatre  was  mainly  a  place  of  amuse¬ 
ment,  but  it  was  also  to  some  extent  a  means  of 
education.  Aristophanes  makes  Aeschylus  say  to  thl^ramatists 
Euripides :  ‘  What  the  master  is  to  childhood,  the 
poets  are  to  youth;  therefore  we  poets  are  bound  to  be  strictly 
moral  in  our  teaching’  ( Frogs ,  1055).  The  teaching  of  Euripides 
may  not  have  been  entirely  sound,  but  it  was  widely  popular. 
His  popularity  throughout  the  Greek  world  is  partly  attested  by 
Plutarch.  In  the  Life  of  Nicias  (29),  we  are  told  that,  at  the 
disastrous  close  of  the  Sicilian  expedition  (413  b.c.),  some  of  the 
Athenian  prisoners  at  Syracuse  owed  their  liberty  to  the  fact  that 
they  were  able  to  recite  passages  from  Euripides ;  and  that,  at 
Caunus,  on  the  Carian  coast,  opposite  to  Rhodes,  a  vessel  pursued 
by  pirates  was  not  allowed  to  enter  the  port,  until  it  was  found 
that  some  of  those  on  board  knew  by  heart  the  songs  of  Euripides, 
— stories  which  have  supplied  Browning  with  the  theme  of 
Ba/austiods  Adventure.  Similarly,  in  the  Life  of  Ly sander  (15), 
we  learn  that,  nine  years  later,  when  Athens  had  been  conquered 
by  Sparta,  and  a  Theban  proposed  that  the  city  should  be 
destroyed  and  its  site  left  desolate,  the  Spartan  captains  were 
deeply  moved  by  a  Phocian  who  sang  before  them  the  opening 
chorus  of  the  Electra  of  Euripides.  But,  whatever  compunction 
may  have  been  caused  by  this  pathetic  incident,  the  walls  were 
undoubtedly  demolished,  though,  to  the  fancy  of  Milton, 

1  ao(poi  Tijpavvoi  tusv  <ro<pu)v  avvovaLq  {Rep.  568  A  with  schol.,  and  Theag. 

125  B). 

2  484  E,  492  E.  Melanippe  in  Syrnp.  177  a. 

3  See  the  Index  of  Bonitz  or  of  Heitz. 


6o 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


‘  the  repeated  air 

Of  sad  Electra’s  poet  had  the  power 
To  save  the  Athenian  walls  from  ruin  bare’1. 

In  and  after  the  times  of  Euripides,  selections  from  the  tragic 
poets  were  probably  learnt  by  heart  in  the  schools  of  Athens. 
Such  may  have  been  the  set  speeches  (p^Vcis),  mentioned  in 
Plato’s  Laws  (8n  a).  The  study  of  ‘tragedy’,  as  an  alternative 
subject  at  school,  is  implied  by  the  comic  poet  Alexis,  who  repre¬ 
sents  the  legendary  musician  Linus  as  setting  before  the  youthful 
Hercules  a  number  of  volumes  and  telling  him  to  look  carefully 
at  their  titles  and  choose  the  one  that  strikes  his  fancy  most. 
The  choice  includes  a  tragedy  (author  not  named),  as  well  as 
Orpheus,  Hesiod,  Choerilus,  Homer,  Epicharmus  and  ‘all  kinds 
of  books  ’ ;  but  the  choice  of  Hercules  characteristically  falls  on  a 
manual  of  cookery  (Athen.  164  b). 

In  the  midst  of  the  dramatic  contest  between  Aeschylus  and 
Euripides,  Aristophanes  pays  his  audience  the  compliment  of 
assuming  that  ‘  each  has  got  his  little  book,  to  prompt  him  to  be 
clever’  ( Frogs ,  1114);  and  he  is  generous  enough  towards  Euri¬ 
pides  to  make  Dionysus  confess  that  reading  a  copy  of  the  poet’s 
Andromeda  on  board  ship  has  smitten  him  with  a  sudden  desire 
to  see  Euripides  once  more  (ib.  54).  But  Aristophanes  himself, 
and  the  poets  of  the  Old  Attic  Comedy,  with  their  unbridled 
license  of  personal  attack  on  public  characters,  were  unsuited  for 
the  purposes  of  education,  though  the  plays  of  their  Sicilian 
precursor  Epicharmus  (d.  450),  appear  to  have  been  rich  in  moral 
maxims2.  The  later  Attic  Comedy  was  more  appropriate  for  this 
purpose;  and  ‘Comedy’  as  well  as  ‘Tragedy’  was  among  the 
subjects  for  which  prizes  were  given  to  junior  boys  at  a  school  in 
Teos  in  the  second  century  b.c.3  In  the  Roman  age  an  alpha¬ 
betical  list  of  some  850  sententious  sayings  was  collected  from  the 
plays  of  Menander.  As  in  Comedy,  so  also  in  Tragedy.  Early 
in  the  Christian  era  'the  Tempter  might  appropriately  represent 
Athens  as  the  place  for  hearing  and  learning  all  that 

1  Milton,  Sonnet  8. 

2  Diog.  Laert.  viii  78,  yuco/xoXoyei. 

3  Boeckh,  C.  /.  G.  3088  (  =  no.  913  in  Michel’s  Recueit). 


IV.] 


DRAMATIC  CRITICISM  IN  PLATO. 


6 1 


‘  the  lofty  grave  tragedians  taught 
In  Chorus  or  Iambick,  teachers  best 
Of  moral  prudence,  with  delight  receiv’d, 

In  brief  sententious  precepts,  while  they  treat 
Of  fate,  and  chance,  and  change  in  human  life, 

High  actions  and  high  passions  best  describing’1. 

Dramatic  criticism  in  Plato  is  represented  mainly  by  certain 
important  passages  of  the  Republic ,  and  also  by  Dramatic 
some  incidental  references  in  other  dialogues.  In  criticism  in 
the  Phaedrus  (268  c)  a  person  coming  to  Sophocles 
or  Euripides,  and  saying  that  he  ‘knows  how  to  compose  very 
long  speeches  about  a  small  matter  and  very  short  speeches 
about  a  great  matter,  and  also  pathetic  or  terrible  and  menacing 
speeches’,  is  described  as  ‘knowing  only  the  preliminaries  of 
Tragedy’  (269  a),  while  Tragedy  itself  is  the  ‘arranging  of  all 
these  elements  in  a  manner  suitable  to  one  another  and  to  the 
whole’  (268  d).  Tragedy,  in  brief,  must  be  an  organic  whole. 
In  the  Philebus  (48  a)  the  passions  excited  by  Tragedy  and 
Comedy  are  described  as  producing  a  feeling  of  pleasure  mixed 
with  pain.  In  the  Gorgias  (502  b)  the  aim  of  ‘that  grave  and 
august  personage,  Tragedy,’  is  narrowly  scrutinised.  Her  aim  is 
merely  to  please  the  spectators,  and  her  creations  are  denounced 
as  only  another  form  of  flattery.  At  the  close  of  the  Symposium , 
in  the  early  morning,  when  the  rest  of  the  company  have  either 
withdrawn  or  have  fallen  asleep,  we  find  Socrates  still  discoursing 
with  the  comic  poet,  Aristophanes,  and  the  tragic  poet,  Agathon, 
and  pressing  both  of  them  to  admit  ‘that  the  genius  of  comedy 
was  the  same  as  that  of  tragedy,  and  that  the  truly  artistic  writer 
of  tragedy  ought  also  to  be  a  writer  of  comedy’,  but  the  two 
poets  (we  are  assured)  were  ‘getting  very  sleepy,  and  did  not 
quite  understand  his  meaning’  (223  d).  That  meaning  may 
possibly  have  been  that  the  object  of  tragedy  as  well  as  comedy 
is  to  influence  men’s  hearts ;  tragic,  as  well  as  comic  effect,  if 
it  is  to  be  attained  by  means  of  true  art,  must  ‘presuppose 
a  scientific  knowledge  of  mankind,  and  this  knowledge  will  fit 
its  possessor  equally  for  either  capacity’2.  Tragedy  and  Comedy, 

1  Milton,  P.  R.  iv  261 — 6. 

2  Zeller,  Plato  and  the  Older  Academy,  p.  509  n.  66. 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


62 


not  as  they  might  be,  but  as  they  were,  find  very  scanty  appre¬ 
ciation  in  the  Republic  and  the  Laws.  Plato  urges  that  the 
‘imitation’,  or  (as  we  should  say)  representation,  of  what  is  bad 
and  unworthy,  which  plays  so  prominent  a  part  in  music  and 
in  poetry,  and  especially  in  the  drama,  imperceptibly  familiarises 
both  artists  and  the  public  with  thoughts  and  acts  which  are 
reprehensible1.  Further,  the  effect,  which  Tragedy  produces  on 
the  audience,  depends  on  the  excitement  of  pity  and  grief ;  that 
of  Comedy,  on  the  excitement  of  laughter  and  (ultimately)  exult¬ 
ation  over  the  misfortunes  of  others.  The  poets  (he  continues) 
claim  our  sympathy  for  the  passions  of  love,  anger,  fear,  jealousy, 
and  the  rest,— all  of  them  unworthy  passions,  which  we  do  not 
approve  in  ourselves,  and  the  representation  of  which  ought 
not  to  afford  us  any  pleasure2.  The  excitement  of  pity  and 
fear  by  means  of  Tragedy  is,  according  to  this  view,  relaxing 
and  enfeebling,  these  emotions  being  apt  to  degenerate  into 
sentimentality  and  to  make  men  unmanly.  For  these  and 
similar  reasons  Plato  banishes  dramatic  poetry  from  his  ideal 
Republic. 

While  Plato  thus  objects  to  Tragedy  as  tending  to  make  men 
cowardly  and  effeminate  by  the  excitement  of  their 
sympathies,  Aristotle  tacitly  opposes  this  view  in  his 
famous  definition  of  Tragedy.  The  closing  words 
of  that  definition  imply  that  Tragedy  presents  us  with  noble 
objects  for  the  exercise  of  the  feelings  of  pity  and  fear,  and 
affords  relief  by  removing  them  from  our  system  : — ‘  through 
pity  and  fear  accomplishing’  (not  the  purificatioti  but)  ‘the  pur¬ 
gation  of  those  emotions  ’  (Roet.  6  §  2).  That  the  latter  is  the 
true  meaning  of  katharsis  was  seen  by  Milton  in  his  preface 
to  Samson  Agonistes  (1671).  Milton’s  interpretation  had  been 
anticipated  in  Italy  by  Scaino  (1578)  and  Galuzzi  (162 1)3: 
and  the  exact  sense  of  the  term  has  since  been  discussed 
by  Twining  (1789),  by  Weil  (1847)  and  Bernays  (1857),  and 
by  many  others4. 


and  in 
Aristotle 


1  Rep.  395  C  f,  401  B ;  Laws  816  D  (Zeller,  /.  c. ,  p.  510). 

2  Rep.  603  c — 607  A,  387  C  f,  Latvs  800c  f  (Zeller,  /.  c.,  p.  511). 

3  By  water,  Journal  of  Philology,  xxvii  -266 — 275  (1900). 

4  e.g.  Egger,  /.  c.,  pp.  267 — 300;  Susemihl  and  Hicks,  Politics  of  Aristotle, 


IV.]  DRAMATIC  CRITICISM  IN  ARISTOTLE.  63 

The  Poetic  includes  a  slight  sketch  of  the  historical  develop¬ 
ment  of  Tragedy.  In  the  fuller  form  of  the  treatise,  or  in  some 
other  work,  Aristotle  must  have  mentioned  Thespis  as  introducing 
the  ‘prologue  and  the  set  speech’1.  The  treatise,  in  its  present 
form,  tells  us  that  Aeschylus  was  the  first  to  introduce  a  second 
actor,  that  he  made  the  chorus  more  subordinate  and  gave 
greater  prominence  to  the  dialogue ;  also  that  Sophocles  intro¬ 
duced  a  third  actor,  and  added  scene-painting  (4  §  13).  In 
the  only  other  reference  to  Aeschylus,  apart  from  a  passing 
mention  of  his  Niobe  (18  §  5),  it  is  noticed  that  Euripides  had 
improved  on  a  line  in  Aeschylus  by  altering  an  ordinary  word 
into  one  that  was  rarer,  thus  producing  a  beautiful  instead  of 
a  trivial  effect2.  Sophocles  and  Euripides  are  twice  contrasted, 
firstly,  when  Aristotle  insists  that  the  chorus  ‘  should  be  regarded 
as  one  of  the  actors  and  be  an  integral  part  of  the  whole  and 
join  in  the  action,  in  the  manner  of  Sophocles  but  not  of  Eu¬ 
ripides  ’  (18  §  7) ;  and  secondly,  when  he  tells  us  that  ‘Sophocles 
said  that  he  drew  men  as  they  ought  to  be  (or  ‘  to  be  drawn  ’),  but 
Euripides  as  they  are’*.  There  are  at  least  four  references  to  the 
Oedipus 4,  a  play  which  Aristotle  obviously  admires.  Euripides 
is  defended  against  the  criticism  of  those,  who  ‘censure  him  for 
making  many  of  his  plays  end  unhappily  ’ ;  this  (says  Aristotle) 
is  ‘  the  right  ending  ’ ;  such  plays  ‘  have  the  most  tragic  effect 
and  in  this  respect  Euripides,  ‘  faulty  as  he  is  in  the  management 
of  the  rest,  is  recognised  as  the  most  tragic  of  the  poets’  (13  §  6). 
His  Medea ,  his  Iphige?ieia  in  Tauris  and  his  Orestes  are  noticed. 
Poets  who  have  ‘  dramatised  the  whole  story  of  the  Fall  of  Troy, 
instead  of  selecting  portions,  like  Euripides,  have  been  unsuc¬ 
cessful’  (18  §  5).  In  the  Rhetoric  (iii  2,  5)  Euripides  is  described 
as  having  set  an  example  to  others  by  the  skilful  selection  of  his 
vocabulary  from  the  language  of  ordinary  life.  The  only  actual 

pp.  64.1 — 656;  and  Butcher’s  Aristotle's  Theory  of  Poetry,  pp.  236—268.  The 
relations  between  Aristotle’s  Poetic  and  Plato  are  discussed  by  Chr.  Belger,  Be 
Aristotele  etiam  in  Arte  Poetica  componenda  Platonis  discipulo  (Berlin),  1890, 
and  by  G.  Finsler,  Platon  und  die  aristotelische  Poctik  (Leipzig),  1900. 

1  Themistius,  Or.  26,  316  D. 

2  22  §  7,  doivarai  for  ecdLei. 

3  25  §  6,  cp.  Butcher  l.  c.  p.  3612. 

4  c.  14,  15,  16,  26;  afterwards  known  as  the  Oedipus  Tyrannus. 


64 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Aristotle’s 

didascaliae 


mention  of  Aristophanes  in  the  Poetic  is  where  Sophocles  is 
described  as  ‘  from  one  point  of  view,  an  imitator  like  Homer, 
both  imitating  higher  types  of  character  ’ ;  from  another,  like 
Aristophanes,  both  being  dramatic  poets  (3  §  2).  The  chapters 
on  Comedy  have  not  come  down  to  us  ;  but,  even  from  the 
treatise  as  it  stands,  it  is  clear  that  Aristotle  preferred  the  poets 
of  the  Middle  Comedy,  with  its  growing  preference  for  generalised 
types  of  character,  to  the  personal  satire  and  rude  invective  of  the 
Old  Attic  Comedy.  A  ‘  lampooner  ’  is  the  label  which  Aristotle, 
by  implication,  attaches  to  its  foremost  extant  representative, 
Aristophanes1. 

Aristotle’s  interest  in  the  Drama  led  to  his  laying  the  founda¬ 
tion  of  its  history  in  the  form  of  a  collection  of 
abstracts  of  the  archives  recording  the  dates  of  the 
several  plays.  From  the  term  (St Sacr/ccu/),  applied 
to  the  teaching  and  training  of  the  chorus  and  actors  and  the 
general  rehearsal  of  a  play,  the  play  itself,  or  the  connected  group 
of  plays  produced  by  a  poet  at  a  single  festival,  was  called  a  didas- 
calia .  The  same  designation  would  naturally  be  given  to  the 
public  record  of  the  result,  and  hence  the  title  of  Aristotle’s 
work.  Such  a  work  was  doubtless  largely  founded  on  the  various 
records  of  success  in  the  dramatic  contests.  These  records  were 
of  five  kinds:  (1)  the  documents  preserved  by  the  State  in  the 
public  archives ;  (2)  the  inscriptions  on  the  monuments  erected 
at  private  expense  by  the  citizen,  who  as  choregus  had  borne  the 
cost  of  the  production  of  the  play ;  (3)  public  lists  of  victors  in 
all  the  contests  at  one  particular  festival ;  (4)  similar  lists  of  the 
victors  at  one  particular  kind  of  contest  at  such  a  festival ; 
(5)  lists  of  tragic  and  comic  actors  and  tragic  and  comic  poets, 
with  numerals  denoting  the  total  number  of  their  victories. 
Plutarch  has  preserved  an  early  example  of  (2),  commemorating 
a  victory  won  in  476  b.c.,  when  the  choregus  was  Themistocles2. 
As  an  example  of  (3)  we  have  the  list  of  the  victors’  names, 
including  that  of  Aeschylus,  for  458  b.c.,  the  year  in  which  he 
produced  the  trilogy  of  the  Orestcia.  Aristotle’s  work,  founded 


1  5  §  3;  9  §55  Butcher,  l.  c p.  370 f. 

2  Plutarch,  Them.  5  §  3,  QepuaTOKXrjs  $peappios  exopriyei,  •bpljiuxos  ebidaaiiev, 
’  AbeLpavTos  vPXev- 


IV.] 


ARISTOTLE’S  ‘DIDASCALIAE’. 


65 


on  records  like  these,  is  the  ultimate  source  of  our  knowledge 
of  the  results  of  the  dramatic  contests  in  which  poets  such  as 
Aeschylus,  Sophocles,  Euripides  and  Aristophanes  were  competi¬ 
tors.  It  was  the  foundation  of  a  similar  work  by  Callimachus 
(c.  260  b.c.),  which  in  its  turn  supplied  the  facts  embodied  by 
Aristophanes  of  Byzantium  ( c .  200  b.c.)  in  a  work  which  sur¬ 
vives  in  the  fragments  quoted  from  it  by  the  Scholiasts  in 
the  Arguments  to  Greek  plays  still  extant.  There  are  thirteen 
fragments  of  Aristotle’s  didascaliae ,  five  of  them  with  Aristotle’s 
name  and  the  rest  without  it1.  The  accuracy  of  the  tradi¬ 
tion  beginning  with  the  public  records  of  Athens  and  passing 
through  the  works  of  Aristotle  Callimachus  and  Aristophanes  of 
Byzantium  down  to  the  Scholiasts  who  transcribed  the  Arguments 
which  ultimately  reach  us  in  the  mss  of  the  Greek  dramatists, 
has  in  one  important  particular  received  a  striking  confirmation. 
Though  some  fourteen  or  fifteen  centuries  had  elapsed  between 
the  date  of  the  Medicean  ms  of  Aeschylus  (tenth  or  eleventh 
century),  and  the  date  of  the  first  performance  of  the  Agamemnoti 
(458  b.c.),  the  copyist’s  written  record  of  the  name  of  the  choregus 
and  the  archon  of  the  year  and  the  fact  that  the  first  prize  was 
won  by  Aeschylus,  was  confirmed  by  an  inscription  found  on  the 
Acropolis  in  1886,  giving  a  complete  list  of  the  victors  at  the 
City  Dionysia  of  the  year  in  question2. 

Aristotle  is  also  said  to  have  written  a  work  on  Dionysiac 
Victories ,  but  it  is  never  quoted  and  is  probably  only  another 
name  for  his  Didascaliae.  Lastly,  he  drew  up  lists  of  victors  in 
the  Olympian  and  Pythian  games3.  One  of  these  Olympian 
victors  he  mentions  in  the  Ethics 4,  in  illustration  of  a  particular 
kind  of  ambiguity  of  designation.  Notwithstanding  the  state¬ 
ment  made  by  an  ancient  commentator  on  Aristotle,  Alexander 
of  Aphrodisias,  that  * \vOpnnro<i  was  here  a  proper  name,  the  name 

1  Aristot.  Frag.  618 — 630  Rose.  Cp.  Trendelenburg,  Grammaticorum 
Graecorum  de  arte  tragica  indicia ,  pp.  3  f ;  A.  Muller’s  Biihnenalterthumer 
P-  375  L  Haigh’s  Attic  Theatre,  pp.  59 — 64,  319 — 328;  and  Jebb  in  Smith’s 
Diet.  Ant.  ii  865  A. 

2  Haigh  l.  c .,  pp.  18,  64,  319.  The  only  point’  in  which  the  copyist  has 
gone  wrong  is  in  writing  Olympiad  28  (*77)  by  mistake  for  80  (ir). 

3  Diog.  Laert.  v  21,  ’OXv/j.-moviKcu  and  IlvdioviKcu  (Frag.  615 — 7  Rose). 

4  vii  4,  "  Avdpuiros  6  ra  ’OXt/ima  vlk&v. 

S. 


5 


66 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP.  IV. 


in  fact  of  a  successful  boxer  at  Olympia,  the  editors  have  gene¬ 
rally  rejected  this  explanation  and  printed  the  word  with  a  small 
initial  letter,  avOpw-rro^.  But  a  papyrus  found  at  Oxyrhynchus, 
and  first  published  in  1899,  shows  that  the  old  Greek  Commen¬ 
tator  was  right,  for  we  there  find  the  name  vAi'0pa)7ros  as  that  of 
the  winner  of  the  Olympian  boxing-match  for  456  B.c. 1 

1  Grenfell  and  Hunt,  Oxyrhynchus  papyri,  ii  p.  93,  and  Classical  Review , 
xiii  290. 


‘  Aristotle.’ 

(In  the  Spada  Palace,  Rome.) 


CHAPTER  V. 


THE  CRITICISM  OF  POETRY  IN  PLATO  AND  ARISTOTLE. 


The  earliest  Greek  theory  of  poetry  is  that  which  we  find  in 
the  Homeric  poems.  In  the  Odyssey  the  source  of 
poetry  is  found  in  ‘  inspiration  ’.  The  blind  bard  The  Theory 
Demodocus  is  ‘beloved  by  the  Muse’,  who  gave  Homer0" m 
him  the  gift  of  ‘sweet  song5;  he  is  ‘prompted  to 
sing  the  glorious  deeds  of  heroes  ’  by  the  Muse,  who  ‘  loves  the 
race  of  bards ’  and  has  ‘  taught  them  all  the  ways  of  song  ’ ;  he  is 
‘taught  by  the  Muse,  the  child  of  Zeus,  or  by  Apollo’;  and,  when 
he  begins  to  sing,  he  is  ‘impelled  by  a  god’1.  Similarly,  the  bard 
Phemius,  the  unwilling  servant  of  the  suitors  of  Penelope,  says  in 
pleading  for  his  life  before  Odysseus  : — ‘  self-taught  am  I ;  but  it 
was  a  god  that  inspired  my  mind  with  all  the  varied  ways  of  song  ’ 
(Od.  xxii  347). 

A  belief  in  the  divine  inspiration  of  the  poet  is  one  of  the 
doctrines  of  Democritus,  whose  recognition  of  the 
inspiration  of  Homer  has  been  already  noticed 
(p.  26).  Of  poets  in  general  he  says: — ‘all  that  a  poet  writes 
under  the  influence  of  enthusiasm  and  of  holy  inspiration  is 
exceedingly  beautiful’2.  He  ‘denies  that  any  one  can  be  a  great 
poet,  unless  he  is  mad’3.  ‘Poets  who  are  sober’,  he  excludes 
from  the  haunts  of  Helicon4. 


Democritus 


1  Od.  viii  63 — 5,  73  avrjKev,  481  ot/xas,  488,  499  dpjuLrjdel s  deov. 

2  Clemens,  Strom.  698  B,  iroLT)T7)s  Sk  aacra  p.ev  av  ypacpy  per  ev6ov(naap^ov 

Kal  iepov  vveupLaTOS  kol\ a  K&pra  tari.  ^ 

3  Cicero,  Divin.  i  80. 

4  Horace,  A.  P.  295. 


5—2 


68 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


The  theory  of  £  inspiration  ’  is  also  prominent  in  Plato.  In 

Plato’s  view,  the  source  of  all  artistic  and  poetic 

Plato  .  .... 

creation,  as  also  of  philosophy,  is  a  higher  inspira¬ 
tion.  In  the  Phaedrus  he  describes  the  ‘  state  of  being  possessed 
by  the  Muses  ’  as  a  kind  of  ‘  madness,  which,  on  entering  a 
delicate  and  virgin  soul,  arouses  and  excites  it  to  frenzy  in  odes 
and  other  kinds  of  poetry,  with  these  adorning  the  myriad  exploits 
of  ancient  heroes  for  the  instruction  of  posterity.  But  he  that  is 
without  the  Muses’  madness  when  he  knocks  at  the  doors  of 
Poesy,  fancying  that  art  alone  will  make  him  a  competent  poet, — 
he  and  his  poetry,  the  poetry  of  sober  sense,  will  never  attain 
perfection,  but  will  be  eclipsed  by  the  poetry  of  inspired  madmen  ’ 
(245  a).  In  the  Apology  Socrates  consults  the  poets — ‘tragic, 
dithyrambic,  and  the  rest’,  asks  them  the  meaning  of  their  finest 
passages,  and  finds  that  there  was  hardly  any  one  of  the 
bystanders  who  could  not  have  talked  better  about  their  poetry 
than  they  did  themselves.  He  soon  concludes  that  it  was  not 
by  wisdom  that  poets  wrote  poetry,  but  (like  diviners  and  sooth¬ 
sayers)  by  a  kind  of  genius  and  inspiration  (22  b).  In  the  Laws 
it  is  ‘an  old  story’,  which  has  been  an  immemorial  tradition  at 
Athens  and  is  accepted  everywhere  else,  that  ‘  whenever  a  poet  is 
enthroned  on  the  tripod  of  the  Muse,  he  is  not  in  his  right  mind  ’ 
(719  c).  In  the  Meno  the  epithet  ‘divine’  is  applied  to  poets 
and  statesmen,  as  well  as  to  ‘diviners  and  prophets,  who  say 
much  that  is  true  without  knowing  what  they  say’  (99  d).  But 
the  fullest  expression  of  this  thought  is  to  be  found  in  the  Ion ,  a 
dialogue  whose  genuineness  has  been  doubted  or  denied  by  some 
critics  (including  Ast,  Schleiermacher,  Susemihl  and  Zeller),  while 
others  (such  as  K.  F.  Hermann,  Stallbaum,  Steinhart  and  Grote) 
accept  it  as  one  of  Plato’s  earliest  works  : — 

It  is  not  by  art,  but  by  being  inspired  and  possessed,  that  all  good  epic 
poets  produce  their  beautiful  poems;  and  similarly  with  all  good  melic  poets, 
—just  as  the  Corybantic  revellers  are  not  in  their  right  mind  when  they  are 
dancing,  even  so  the  melic  poets  are  not  in  their  right  mind  when  they  are 
composing  their  beautiful  strains.  On  the  contrary,  when  they  have  fallen 
under  the  spell  of  melody  and  metre,  they  are  like  inspired  revellers,  and  on 
their  becoming  possessed, — even  as  the  Maenads  are  possessed  and  not  in  their 
right  senses,  when  they  draw  honey  and  milk  from  the  rivers, — the  soul  of 
the  melic  poets  acts  in  like  manner,  as  they  themselves  admit.  For  the  poets 


v.] 


CRITICISM  OF  POETRY  IN  PLATO. 


69 


tell  us  (as  you  remember)  that  they  cull  their  sweet  strains  from  ‘fountains 
flowing  with  honey’,  ‘out  of  the  gardens  and  dells  of  the  Muses’,  and  bring 
them  to  us  like  bees;  for,  like  bees,  they  are  ever  on  the  wing.  And  what 
they  say  is  true ;  for  the  poet  is  a  light  and  winged  and  holy  being ;  he 
cannot  compose  until  he  becomes  inspired  and  out  of  his  senses,  with  his 
mind  no  longer  in  him;  but,  so  long  as  he  is  in  possession  of  his  senses,  not 
one  of  them  is  capable  of  composing,  or  of  uttering  his  oracular  sayings. 
Many  as  are  the  noble  things  that  they  say  about  their  themes  of  song,  like 
your  own  sayings,  Ion,  about  Homer,  yet,  inasmuch  as  it  is  not  by  Art  that 
they  compose  but  by  the  gift  of  God,  all  that  the  poet  can  really  succeed  in 
composing  is  the  theme  to  which  he  is  impelled  by  the  Muse.  Thus,  one  of 
them  composes  dithyrambs,  and  another  hymns  of  praise,  and  another  epic  or 
iambic  verses;  and  each  of  them  succeeds  in  one  kind  of  composition  only, 
for  it  is  not  by  Art  that  they  produce  these  poems  but  by  a  power  divine 
...And  the  reason  why  God  takes  away  their  senses,  when  he  uses  them  as 
his  ministers,  even  as  he  uses  the  ministrations  of  soothsayers  and  prophets 
divine,  is  in  order  that  we  who  hear  them  may  know  that,  since  they  are  out 
of  their  senses,  it  is  not  these  poets  who  utter  the  words  which  we  prize  so 
highly,  but  it  is  God  himself  who  is  the  speaker,  and  it  is  through  them  that 
he  is  speaking  to  us  (533  E-534  d). 

Elsewhere,  Plato  uses  far  more  sober  language,  when  he 
calmly  analyses  the  process  by  which  the  art  of  poetry  comes  into 
being.  Poetry  is  then  described  not  as  an  ‘  inspiration  ’,  but  as  a 
kind  of  ‘imitation’1.  ‘Imitation’  is  the  characteristic  of  all  art, 
and  of  the  poetic  art  in  particular.  In  the  third  book  of  the 
Republic  the  question  is  started  whether  ‘all  imitation  is  to  be 
prohibited  ’,  ‘  whether  tragedy  and  comedy  are  to  be  admitted 
into  the  State  ’,  and  it  is  contended  that  the  same  person  cannot 
play  a  serious  part  in  life  and  also  imitate  many  other  parts ; 
and  that,  even  in  forms  of  imitation  that  are  closely  connected,  as 
in  Tragedy  and  Comedy,  the  same  persons  cannot  succeed  in 
both.  All  imitative  poetry  is  accordingly  rejected  {Rep.  394-5). 
In  the  tenth  book  the  attack  on  poetry  as  an  imitative  art  is 
renewed.  All  poetic  imitations  are  there  denounced  as  dangerous 
to  those  who  have  not  discerned  their  true  nature  (595  jb).  Just 
as  the  painter  makes  only  a  superficial  likeness  of  a  thing,  and 
not  the  actual  thing  itself,  much  less  the  ideal  thing,  so  the  whole 
tribe  of  imitators,  including  the  poet  and  the  tragic  poet  in 
particular,  are  ‘in  the  third  degree  removed’  (or,  as  we  should 
say,  ‘twice  removed’)  ‘from  the  truth’  (597  e). 

1  Zeller’s  Plato ,  p.  509 — 513. 


7  o 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Plato’s  description  of  art  as  a  kind  of  ‘  imitation  ’  has  not 
unnaturally  met  with  a  considerable  amount  of  criticism.  Thus 
it  has  been  justly  observed,  that  ‘in  modern  times  we  should  say 
that  art  is  not  merely  imitation,  but  rather  the  expression  of  the 
ideal  in  forms  of  sense’1.  Poets  and  painters  are  more  than 
mere  imitators,  as  Plato  himself  admits  elsewhere  in  the  case  of 
the  painter.  ‘How’,  he  asks,  ‘would  a  painter  be  in  any  less 
degree  a  good  painter  who  having  painted  a  perfect  pattern  of  the 
highest  human  beauty,  and  left  nothing  lacking  in  the  picture,  is 
unable  to  prove  that  such  a  man  might  possibly  exist  ?  ’  and  the 
answer  is,  ‘He  would  not’  {Rep.  472  d).  ‘No  theory’,  it  has 
been  remarked,  ‘  can  be  more  erroneous  than  that  which  degrades 
art  into  mere  imitation,  which  seeks  for  beauty  in  the  parts  and 
not  in  the  whole... .The  requirement  of  composition  in  a  work  of 
art  is  alone  an  evidence  that  mere  imitation  is  not  art’2.  Of  the 
passage  from  the  Gorgias,  above  cited,  it  has  been  frankly  said 
that  ‘the  censure... is  too  sweeping  even  from  Plato’s  point  of 
view,  for  Euripides  at  any  rate  aimed  at  a  moral  purpose  of  one 
sort  or  other,  and  sacrificed  to  his  zeal  as  an  instructor  much  of 
the  popularity  and  much  also  of  the  poetic  beauty  of  his  plays. 
As  a  criticism  on  Sophocles  and  Aeschylus  it  is,  to  modern 
apprehension,  still  more  deplorable  ’.  One  of  the  passages 
already  quoted  from  the  Phaedrus  (268  c)  ‘proves  that  Plato  had 
a  thorough  perception  of  poetic  excellence  whenever  it  suited 
him  to  forget  his  political  theories  ’3. 

Even  when  we  pass  from  Plato  to  Aristotle,  we  are  still 

Arist  ti  pursued  by  the  description  of  Poetry  as  one  of  the 
‘imitative’  arts,  and  of  Poetry  and  Music  in  par¬ 
ticular  as  ‘modes  of  imitation’  {Poet.  1  §  2).  But  there  is  a 
change  in  the  point  of  view  corresponding  to  the  difference 
between  the  philosophy  of  Plato  and  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle. 
Plato,  ‘  starting  from  the  notion  of  pure  Being  ’,  and  regarding  the 
world  of  ‘  ideas  ’  as  the  world  of  true  existence,  and  sensible 
phenomena  as  merely  copies  of  a  suprasensuous  archetype,  in  the 

1  Jowett’s  Plato,  ii  130  ed.  1871. 

2  Jowett  and  Campbell  on  Rep.  596  D. 

3  W.  H.  Thompson  on  Gorg.  502  B. — See  also  Saintsbury’s  History  of 
Criticism ,  i  17 — 20.  Cp.  p.  61  supra. 


V.] 


CRITICISM  OF  POETRY  IN  ARISTOTLE. 


71 


domain  of  art  has  apparently  but  a  small  opinion  of  the  earthly 
counterparts  of  the  celestial  originals.  In  Plato’s  view  the  poet 
and  the  painter  (as  we  have  seen)  make  an  imperfect  copy  of  the 
actual,  while  the  actual  in  its  turn  is  only  a  distant  adumbration 
of  the  ideal.  Plato  accordingly  regards  a  work  of  art,  whether  a 
poem  or  a  picture,  as  in  the  degraded  position  of  a  copy  of  a 
copy,  and  therefore  twice  removed  from  the  truth.  Poets  and 
painters  alike  are  superficial  in  their  knowledge  of  the  things 
which  they  ‘imitate’  or  represent,  and  the  result  of  such  imper¬ 
fect  knowledge  cannot  be  worthy  of  admiration1.  The  contrast 
between  Plato  and  Aristotle  is  thus  summed  up  by  Zeller2: — 
‘  While  Plato  and  Aristotle  agree  in  regarding  art  as  a  species  of 
imitation,  they  draw  very  different  conclusions  from  this  account 
of  it.  Plato  thinks  of  it  only  as  the  imitation  of  sensible  phe¬ 
nomena  and  accordingly  expresses  the  utmost  contempt  for  the 
falsity  and  worthlessness  of  art ;  Aristotle,  on  the  other  hand, 
looks  upon  artistic  presentation  as  the  sensible  vehicle  to  us  of 
universal  truths  and  thus  places  it  above  the  empirical  knowledge 
of  individual  things  ’.  Here  and  elsewhere,  Aristotle,  in  whose 
philosophy  the  fundamental  doctrine  was  not  Being  but  Becoming, 
has  a  higher  regard  for  the  processes  of  growth  and  development 
and  for  the  phenomena  of  the  visible  world.  Hence  his  greater 
regard  not  only  for  the  study  of  physical  science  but  also  for  the 
appreciation  of  the  products  of  imitative  art,  whether  in  painting 
or  in  poetry.  In  short,  while  ‘imitation’  is  a  term  common  in 
this  connexion  to  Aristotle  and  to  Plato,  the  suggestion  of  con¬ 
tempt  implied  in  Plato’s  use  of  the  term  has  disappeared3. 

The  impression  given  to  a  modern  reader  by  the  somewhat 
narrow  term  ‘  imitation  ’  with  its  suggestion  of  a  slavishly  me¬ 
chanical  copy,  is  sufficiently  corrected  by  the  hints  supplied  by 
Aristotle  himself.  While  art  is  traced  by  Aristotle  to  the  natural 
love  of  ‘imitation’,  and  to  the  pleasure  felt  in  recognising 
likenesses  {Poet.  2  §  1 ;  1 5  §  8),  art  is  not  confined  to  mere 

1  Cp.  Timaeus ,  19  d. 

2  Aristotle ,  ii  307. 

3  This  is  fully  set  forth  by  Professor  Butcher,  /.  c.,  pp.  121 — 1622,  esp. 
pp.  158 — 160;  see  also  esp.  Zeller’s  Aristotle,  ii  300—324,  and  Belger  and 
Finsler,  quoted  on  p.  63  n. 


72 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


copying.  Art  not  only  imitates  Nature,  but  also  completes  its 
deficiencies1.  Art  endeavours  to  seize  the  universal  type  in  the 
individual  phenomena.  Poetry  (as  compared  with  History) 
represents  things  in  their  universal  aspect  {Poet.  9  §§  1-3). 
Immediately  after  speaking  of  ‘imitation’,  Aristotle  recognises 
that  the  poet,  in  particular  the  tragic  poet,  may  represent  men  as 
better  than  they  are,  just  as  Polygnotus  depicted  men  as  nobler 
than  they  were  (1  §  4).  He  also  allows  room  for  the  play  of 
genius  and  evfen  for  the  transport  of  phrensy,  when  he  says  that 
‘  poetry  demands  either  a  natural  quickness  of  parts,  or  a  touch  of 
madness  ’,  adding  that  poets  of  the  former  type  can  mould  them¬ 
selves  to  the  characters  which  they  represent,  while  those  of  the 
latter  are  transported  out  of  themselves  (17  §  2)2.  But,  while 
Aristotle  recognises  the  workings  of  poetic  phrensy,  he  has  no 
term  to  express  ‘  imagination  ’,  in  the  sense  of  a  ‘  creative  faculty  ’. 
In  the  Rhetoric  (i  11,  6)  he  describes  pliant asia  as  ‘a  kind  of 
feeble  sensation ’ ;  elsewhere  he  defines  it  as  ‘a  movement  re¬ 
sulting  from  the  actual  operation  of  the  faculty  of  sense’3,  i.e.  as 
‘the  process  by  which  an  impression  of  sense  is  pictured  and 
retained  before  the  mind’4.  Even  among  the  most  imaginative 
of  peoples,  the  workings  of  the  ‘  imagination  ’  had  not  yet  been 
analysed.  For  phantasia  in  the  sense  of  ‘  creative  imagination  ’ 
we  have  to  wait  for  more  than  five  centuries  till  we  find  it  in 
Philostratus5. 

Aristotle’s  Theory  of  Poetry  is  partially  unfolded  in  his  Poetic , 


1  Phys.  ii  8,  r/  rlxvy]  T a  Mev  err ireXei  a  i]  (pbcris  adware t  airepyacraaOaL ,  ra 
db  papeirai. 

2  Cp.  Rhet.  iii  7,  11,  hdeov  r)  iroLr)cns,  Probl.  xxx  I,  M dpaKos.-a/aeivuv  r)v 
TroLT)T7]s,  6'r’  harair),  and  Plato’s  Ion,  quoted  on  p.  68;  also  Finsler,  i.c.,  172 — 
191. 


3  De  Anima  iii  3,  429  a  1,  klvtjctls  xn ro  tt)s  ala(hf)(reo)s  rrjs  nar  hbpyeiav 
yiyvop.hr)  (ed.  E.  Wallace,  p.  153). 

4  E.  Wallace,  Outlines  of  the  Philosophy  of  Aristotle ,  p.  903;  cp.  Cope  on 
Rhet.  i  p.  205;  Freudenthal,  (pavraoia  bei  Arist.;  Bonitz,  Index,  s.  v. 

5  Vita  Apollotiii ,  vi  19  (cp.  Saintsbury,  /.  c.,  i  120);  of  the  images  of  the 
gods  carved  by  a  Pheidias  or  a  Praxiteles,  (pavraoia  ravr ’  eipyaaaro,  (ro<pu)- 
rtpa  pupr)<xeus  Srjpiovpyds.  p.ip.r)cns  p.h  yap  drjpLovpyrjaeL  5  eldev,  (pavraola 
ral  5  p.7)  eldev  VTrodrjtTeraL  yap  avrd  irpbs  rr)v  avaepopav  rod  6vros.  Kal 
p.ip.r)<nv  p.kv  ttoWAkis  eKKpovei  hTrXrjijLS,  (pavraalav  5’  obSh'  XwPei  7 &P  dvh- 
tt\t)ktos  rrpbs  8  avrr)  virldero. 


v.] 


ARISTOTLE’S  TREATISE  ON  POETRY. 


73 


a  most  suggestive  work  which  has  come  down  to  us  in  an  un¬ 
satisfactory  condition,  imperfect  in  some  of  its  parts  and  inter¬ 
polated  in  others.  Its  general  outline  (omitting  interpolations) 
is  as  follows  : — 

The  arts  of  Poetry,  Music,  Dancing,  Painting  and  Sculpture  rest  on  a 
common  principle  of  ‘imitation’;  but  they  differ  in  the  means,  objects  and 
manner  of  imitation.  In  Poetry,  the  means  are  rhythm,  language,  and  melody 
(c.  i).  The  objects  of  imitation  are  persons  in  action,  either  persons  of  a  higher 
type  as  in  Tragedy,  or  of  a  lower  type  as  in  Comedy  (c.  2).  The  manner  of 
imitation  may  be  either  a  combination  of  direct  and  dramatic  narrative,  as 
in  Homer,  or  direct  narrative  alone x,  or  pure  drama,  as  in  Tragedy  and 
Comedy  (c.  3). 

Poetry  originated  in  the  instinct  of  imitation,  and  of  melody  and  rhythm. 
It  soon  parted  in  two  directions,  as  is  proved  by  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey ,  as 
compared  with  the  Margites,  a  satirical  poem  (here  ascribed  to  Homer),  and 
by  Tragedy,  as  compared  with  Comedy.  Then  follows  a  sketch  of  the 
history  of  Tragedy  (c.  4)  and  Comedy.  Epic  poetry  agrees  with  Tragedy  in 
being  an  imitation,  in  verse,  of  characters  of  the  higher  type,  but  epic  action 
has  no  limits  of  time,  and  Tragedy  has  some  constituent  parts  peculiar  to 
itself  (c.  5).  Tragedy  is  then  defined  as  *  an  imitation  of  an  action  that  is 
serious,  complete,  and  of  a  certain  magnitude ;  in  language  embellished  with 
each  kind  of  artistic  ornament,  the  several  kinds  being  found  in  separate 
parts  of  the  play  ;  in  the  form  of  action,  not  of  narrative  ;  through  pity  and 
fear  effecting  the  proper  purgation  of  these  {lit.  ‘such’)  emotions’2.  It 
has  six  elements  ;  three  external,  scenic  presentment,  lyrical  song  {ixeKoirodd), 
and  diction;  and  three  internal,  plot,  character,  and  thought  (c.  6).  The 
plot  must  be  a  whole,  complete  in  itself,  and  of  adequate  magnitude  (c.  7). 
It  must  have  a  unity  of  action  (c.  8).  Dramatic  unity  can  be  attained  only 
by  the  observance  of  poetic  truth  (c.  9).  The  plot  may  be  either  simple, 
when  the  turning-point  is  reached  without  reversal  of  fortune  (7repi7r^reta), 
or  without  recognition  {avayv&pLcns);  complicated,  when  it  is  reached  by  either 
or  both  (c.  10).  Reversal  of  fortune  and  dramatic  incident  {irddos)  are  next 
defined  (c.  n).  A  perfect  tragedy  should  imitate  actions  which  excite  pity 
and  fear.  Pity  is  excited  by  unmerited  misfortune  ;  fear,  by  the  misfortunes 
of  men  like  ourselves  (c.  13).  These  emotions  should  spring  from  the  plot 
itself  (c.  14).  The  character  represented  must  be  good,  appropriate,  true 

1  i.e.  either  ‘  as  in  some  of  the  later  epic  poets  ’,  cp.  24  §  7  (Bywater, 
Journal  of  Philology,  xiv  42),  or  ‘as  in  certain  types  of  lyric  poetry’,  cp. 
with  dirayylKKovTa  Plato  Rep.  394  C,  8t  dirayyeKLas  rod  ttoitjtov  (of  dithy¬ 
rambs).  But  Ritter  and  Vahlen  rightly  hold  that  only  two  kinds  of  poetry 
are  here  noticed,  epic  and  dramatic,  not  three  as  in  Plato  l.c.  Cp.  Belger, 
PP-  34  44* 

2  Butcher’s  transl.  Cp.  p.  62. 


74 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


to  life,  consistent;  it  should  also  be  idealised  (c.  15).  Recognition  maybe 
brought  about  in  various  ways  (c.  16).  The  tragic  poet  should  follow  certain 
rules  :  (i)  with  a  view  to  a  perfect  and  consistent  realisation  of  the  dramatis 
personae ,  he  must  place  the  scene  before  his  eyes,  and  in  imagination  act 
the  parts  himself;  (ii)  he  must  first  draw  the  outline  of  the  play,  and  then 
fill  in  the  episodes  (c.  17).  He  must  be  careful  about  the  complication 
(8t<ns)  and  especially  about  the  disentangling  or  denouement  (\i/<m)  of  the 
plot.  He  should  combine  varied  forms  of  poetic  excellence.  He  must  not 
overload  a  Tragedy  with  details  suitable  to  an  Epic  poem.  He  must  make 
the  choral  odes  an  organic  part  of  the  whole  (c.  18).  Thought  (8<.&voia), 
or  the  intellectual  element  in  Tragedy,  may  be  expressed  by  dramatic  speeches 
or  by  dramatic  incidents.  Diction  mainly  belongs  to  the  province  of  decla¬ 
mation,  rather  than  that  of  poetry  (c.  19).  Various  kinds  of  words  are  next 
distinguished,  and  metaphor,  in  particular,  defined  and  exemplified  (c.  21). 
Elevation  of  language  may  be  combined  with  perspicuity  by  a  certain  infusion 
of  rare,  or  metaphorical,  or  ornamental  words,  with  those  that  are  common; 
or  by  the  use  of  words  which  have  been  extended,  contracted,  or  otherwise 
altered  (c.  22). 

Epic  poetry  agrees  with  Tragedy  in  unity  of  action  (c.  23),  also  in  being 
either  simple  or  complicated,  ‘  ethical  ’  or  ‘  pathetic  ’,  in  having  the  same 
parts  (with  the  exception  of  song  and  scenery),  and  in  requiring  artistic 
thought  and  diction.  It  differs  in  scale,  and  in  metre,  and  in  the  art  of 
giving  an  air  of  reality  to  fictions  which  are  really  incredible  (c.  24).  The 
principles  on  which  critical  objections  brought  against  Poetry  should  be  met, 
are  then  set  forth  (7 repl  Trpo&XtinaTuv  /cat  \lxxewv) .  Poetic  truth,  as  distin¬ 
guished  from  ordinary  reality,  is  next  elucidated  (c.  25).  Epic  poetry  is 
sometimes  supposed  to  be  superior  to  Tragedy,  because  it  appeals  to  a 
cultivated  audience,  which  has  no  need  of  gesture.  Tragedy,  however,  is 
really  the  higher  art :  it  has  all  the  elements  of  Epic  poetry,  with  the  addition 
of  music  and  scenic  accessories ;  it  also  attains  its  end  within  narrower  limits 
of  time,  and  it  has  more  unity  of  action  (c.  26) 1. 

Of  the  £  Three  Unities  ’  of  Action,  Time  and  Place,  popularly 
ascribed  to  Aristotle,  it  will  be  observed  that  Unity  of  Action 
is  the  only  one  which  he  actually  enjoins2.  As  a  treatise  on 
poetry  the  work  is  obviously  incomplete,  Lyric  poetry  being 
practically  ignored,  and  Comedy  noticed  only  in  a  slight  sketch 
of  its  origin.  The  author  (c.  6)  undertakes  to  treat  of  Comedy, 
but  his  treatment  of  the  subject  has  not  reached  us.  He  defines 

1  For  a  more  detailed  analysis  see  Butcher,  l.c.,  pp.  1 — 3  ;  cp.  Saintsbury, 
l.c.,  pp.  32 — 39;  and  Prickard’s  Lecture  on  Aristotle  on  the  Art  of  Poetry, 
pp.  9 — 18. 

2  Egger,  l.c.,  265s;  Butcher,  l.c.,  283 — 295s. 


V.] 


ARISTOTLE’S  TREATISE  ON  POETRY. 


7  5 


‘the  ludicrous’  (c.  5  §  1),  but  the  ‘different  kinds  of  the  ludicrous’, 
which,  as  we  know  from  the  Rhetoric  (iii  18),  were  once  dis¬ 
criminated  in  the  Poetic ,  doubtless  in  connexion  with  Comedy,  are 
not  to  be  found  in  the  present  text1.  In  the  Politics  (1341  b  39), 
while  briefly  treating  of  katharsis ,  he  promises  to  express  him¬ 
self  more  clearly  on  this  point  in  his  treatise  on  Poetry  ( kv  rots 
7repl  TroirjTiKrjs),  but  this  part  of  the  definition  of  Tragedy  (6  §  2) 
is  unfortunately  not  explained  in  the  Poetic 2.  In  the  complete 
work  he  also  treated  of  synonyms,  as  stated  in  the  Rhetoric 
(iii  2,  7) 3 ;  and  he  could  hardly  have  failed  to  mention  Thespis 
(p.  63).  His  treatise  On  Poets,  probably  in  three  books,  may 
have  contained  materials  for  his  treatise  on  Poetry,  which  in 
its  original  form  probably  consisted  of  two.  Even  in  its  present 
condition  it  is  an  invaluable  work.  Severely  scientific  and  mas¬ 
terly  in  method,  unadorned  in  style,  and  almost  entirely  destitute 
of  literary  grace  and  charm,  it  nevertheless  stands  out  con¬ 
spicuously  in  Greek  literature  as  the  earliest  example  of  a  syste¬ 
matic  criticism  of  Poetry ;  and,  in  our  present  survey  of  the 
critical  literature  of  the  past,  we  shall  find  nothing  in  Greek 
literature  to  rival  it  as  a  model  of  literary  criticism  until,  in  the 
Roman  age,  we  ultimately  reach  the  celebrated  treatise  On  the 
Sublime. 


1  Cp.  Vahlen’s  3rd  ed.  (1885),  pp.  77 — 80. 

2  See  Frag.  5  (Vahlen  and  Bywater). 

3  Frag.  4  Vahlen,  =  1  By  water. 


CHAPTER  VI. 


THE  RISE  OF  RHETORIC  AND  THE  STUDY  OF  PROSE. 


The  greater  part  of  the  materials  for  the  early  history  of  Greek 
rhetoric  has  been  collected  by  Spengel  in  his  Artium  Scrip  tores 
(1828),  by  Westermann  in  his  Geschichte  der  Beredtsamkeit  (1833- 
5),  and  by  Cope  in  his  articles  on  the  Sophistical  Rhetoric  in  the 
Cambridge  Journal  of  Classical  and  Sacred  Philology  (185 5-7). 
The  history  itself  has  been  fully  set  forth  by  Professor  Blass  in 
the  first  volume  of  his  Attische  Beredsamkeit  (1868),  and  has  been 
brilliantly  sketched  by  Sir  Richard  Jebb  in  his  Attic  Orators 
(1876,  vol.  1,  pp.  cviii-cxxxvii),  while  it  has  also  been  briefly 
traced  in  the  Introduction  to  the  De  Oratore  of  Cicero,  as  edited 
by  Professor  Wilkins  (1879)  and  in  that  to  the  Orator,  as  edited 
by  the  present  writer  (1885,  pp.  ii-xi).  All  that  is  here  attempted 
is  a  very  short  survey  of  the  subject,  so  far  as  it  concerns  our 
immediate  purpose. 

In  the  heroic  age  some  of  the  foremost  heroes  are  described 
in  the  Homeric  poems  as  orators  as  well  as 
warriors.  Achilles  is  trained  to  be  ‘a  speaker  of 
words,  as  well  as  a  doer  of  deeds  ’  (//.  ix  443) ; 
Nestor  is  the  clear-voiced  orator,  from  whose  lips  ‘sweeter  than 
honey  flowed  the  stream  of  speech  ’  (i  249) ;  Menelaus  touches 
only  on  salient  points  ‘in  words  though  few,  yet  clear’  (iii  214); 
while  Odysseus,  though  awkward  in  action,  is  beyond  compare 
with  his  ‘  deep  voice  ’  and  with  his  ‘  words  that  fall  like  flakes  of 
wintry  snow’  (iii  222). 

In  historic  times  Athens  was  the  only  city  of  Greece  where 
eloquence  found  a  home.  The  eloquence  of 
Pericles  is  said  to  have  been  singularly  persuasive. 


Homeric 

orators 


Pericles 


CHAP.  VI.] 


GORGIAS. 


77 


We  are  told  by  Eupolis  that  ‘a  power  persuasive  rested  on  his 
lips ;  such  was  his  charm ;  alone  among  the  speakers,  he  ever  left 
his  sting  in  them  that  heard  him’  (Pliny  Ep.  i  20,  17);  while 
Aristophanes  describes  him  as,  like  the  Olympian  Zeus,  ‘lightening 
and  thundering  and  confounding  Greece’  ( Ach .  531).  But  his 
eloquence  was  of  a  purely  practical  kind,  uninfluenced  by  the 
theoretical  treatment  of  the  art,  which  had  sprung  into  being  in 
Sicily,  but  apparently  made  little,  if  any,  impression  on  Athens 
until  after  the  beginning  of  the  Peloponnesian  war. 

Greek  rhetoric  had  arisen  in  Sicily  with  the  establishment  of 
democracy  at  Acragas  in  472  b.c.,  and  at  Syracuse  in  466.  Its 
earliest  professors  had  been  Corax  and  Tisias,  and 

A  Gorgias 

Pericles  had  passed  away  two  years  before  Gorgias, 
the  famous  pupil  of  Tisias,  made  his  first  appearance  in  Athens 
in  427.  He  came  as  an  envoy  to  invite  Athens  to  aid  his  native 
town  of  Leontini  against  the  encroachments  of  Syracuse.  The 
embassy  is  described  by  Thucydides  (iii  68) ;  but,  although  the 
speech  delivered  by  Gorgias  made  a  singular  sensation,  the  name 
of  Gorgias  is  not  mentioned.  It  is  a  Sicilian  historian,  Diodorus 
(xii  53),  who  tells  us  that  ‘the  Athenians,  clever  as  they  were  and 
fond  of  oratory  (<fn\o\oyoi),  were  struck  by  the  singular  distinction 
of  the  style  of  Gorgias,  with  its  pointed  antitheses,  its  symmetrical 
clauses,  its  parallelisms  of  structure  and  its  rhyming  endings, 
which  were  then  welcomed  owing  to  their  novelty’.  These  figures 
of  speech  are  most  simply  classified  as  follows  : — 

avT£0e<ris  =  contrast  of  sense. 

irapCo-wo-is  =  parallelism  of  structure. 

irapopoCwa-is  =  parallelism  of  sound. 

The  last  is  subdivided  into  opoioKaTapKTov,  opoioT^XcuTov  and 
irapovopao-Ca,  according  as  the  ‘parallelism  of  sound’  affects  the 
beginning,  or  the  end,  or  the  whole,  of  the  two  contrasted  words. 
Gorgias  was  the  founder  of  an  artificial  or  semi-artistic  type  of 
Greek  prose.  His  style  had  a  strongly  poetical  colouring  (Arist. 
Rhet.  iii  1,  9) ;  even  at  the  close  of  his  life  he  observed  in  a 
poetic  vein  :  ‘  At  last  Sleep  lays  me  with  his  brother  Death  ’ ;  and 
another  of  his  last  sayings  finds  its  parallel  in  Waller’s  line 
describing  the  body  in  old  age  as  ‘the  soul’s  dark  cottage, 


78 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


battered  and  decayed’.  His  sentences  were  broken  up  into 
short  symmetrical  clauses,  which  had  a  general  effect  very  similar 
to  that  of  actual  metre ;  and  his  example  was  closely  followed  by 
certain  writers  of  artificial  prose  in  later  ages,  especially  among 
the  adherents  of  ‘  Asianism  ’  in  the  third  and  following  centuries 
b.c.,  who  had  their  counterpart  in  the  ‘  Euphuism  ’  of  our  own 
1 6th  century1. 

The  figures  of  speech  characteristic  of  Gorgias  were  retained 
by  his  pupil,  the  eminent  rhetorician,  Isocrates 

Isocrates  _ 

(436-338  b.c.).  Isocrates,  however,  unlike  the 
later  *  Asiatic  ’  adherents  of  Gorgias,  with  their  cramped  and  jerky 
sentences,  succeeded  in  expanding  the  unduly  concise  and 
monotonous  clauses  of  his  master  by  moulding  them  into  an 
ampler  and  more  varied  periodic  form,  in  which  metrical  and 
symmetrical  effects  were  diversified  by  meandering  melodies  of 
rhythm  and  subtle  harmonies  of  cadence.  A  very  short  specimen 
of  his  prose  may  here  be  quoted  from  the  latter  part  of  his 
Panegyric  (§  186)  : — (fnjp.r]v  Se  Kal  p.vrjp.r] v  kcu  8o£uv  |  ircxrrjv  tlv a 
■gprj  vo/xl^€LV,  |  77  £<ui/t<xs  e£eiv,  |  77  TeXeuTyjaavras  KaTaAeu/feiv,  |  rods 
ev  rots  roiovrois  epyocs  dptcrrc^cravTas ;  The  Style  of  Isocrates 
was  in  the  main  the  foundation  of  the  style  of  Cicero ;  and  the 
style  of  Cicero  has  in  its  turn  supplied  the  languages  of  Europe 
with  a  model  for  some  of  the  most  highly  finished  forms  of  the 
ampler  types  of  modern  prose. 

While  rhetoricians  of  the  Sicilian  school  of  Gorgias,  in  culti¬ 
vating  a  semi-poetic  type  of  prose,  aimed  mainly  at  ‘  beauty  of 
language  ’  (edeVeia),  the  Greek  school  of  certain 
other  Sophists,  such  as  Protagoras,  Prodicus  and 
Hippias,  aimed  at  ‘  correctness  of  language  ’  (op- 
$o€7T€ia) 2.  Protagoras  classified  the  modes  of 
speech ;  Prodicus,  whose  style  is  parodied  in  Plato’s  Protagoras 
(337  a-c),  dwelt  on  distinctions  between  synonyms ;  while 
Hippias  aimed  at  a  correct  and  elevated  style  of 
expression.  Two  more  names  may  be  briefly 
noticed.  Thrasymachus  of  Calchedon  ( c .  45  7— 
400  b.c.)  marked  an  epoch  in  Greek  prose  by 


Protagoras 

Prodicus. 

Hippias 


Thrasyma¬ 
chus  and 
Theodorus 


1  Norden,  Die  Antike  Kunstprosa ,  pp.  25  f,  134  f,  786  f. 

2  Plato,  Phaedrus ,  267  c  ;  Spengel,  Artium  Scriptores,  p.  40  f. 


VI.] 


PLATOS  PHAEDRUS. 


79 


forming  a  style  intermediate  between  the  ‘elaborately  artificial’ 
style  of  Thucydides  and  the  ‘  simple  and  plain  ’  style  of  Lysias, 
and  became  in  this  respect  a  precursor  of  Plato  and  Isocrates1; 
while  Theodorus  of  Byzantium  {fl.  412  b.c.),  who  is  regarded  as 
a  prominent  rhetorician  both  by  Plato  and  Aristotle,  introduced 
some  novel  terms  for  the  subdivisions  of  a  speech,  and  is  described 
in  the  Phaedrus  (266  e)  as  a  ‘cunning  speech-wright ’  (AoyoSat- 
SaAos),  a  phrase  implying  mastery  in  rhetorical  artifice. 

The  two  dialogues  of  Plato  specially  concerned  with  rhetoric 
are  the  Gorgias  and  the  Phaedrus.  In  the  former 
it  is  described,  not  as  an  art,  but  as  a  happy  knack  Plato’s 
acquired  by  practice  and  destitute  of  scientific  Phaedrus 
principle  (463  b,  501  a).  In  both  dialogues  Plato 
casts  ridicule  on  the  writers  of  the  popular  rhetorical  treatises ; 
but,  in  the  Phaedrus ,  instead  of  denouncing  rhetoric  unreservedly, 
he  draws  up  an  outline  of  a  new  rhetoric  founded  on  a  more 
philosophic  basis,  resting  partly  on  dialectic,  which  aids  the  orator 
in  the  invention  of  arguments,  and  partly  on  psychology,  which 
enables  him  to  distinguish  between  the  several  varieties  of  human 
character  in  his  audience  and  to  apply  the  means  best  adapted 
to  produce  that  persuasion  which  is  the  aim  of  his  art2. 

The  hints  which  Plato  throws  out  in  the  Phaedrus  are 
elaborately  expanded  in  the  Rhetoric  of  Aristotle, 
especially  in  the  first  two  books,  which  deal  with  ^”5°tle’s 
the  modes  of  producing  persuasion.  In  the  first 
book  these  are  classified;  while  the  second  includes  (1)  ‘a  careful 
analysis  of  the  affections  of  which  human  nature  is  susceptible, 
and  also  of  the  causes  by  which  such  affections  are  called  forth ; 
(2)  a  descriptive  catalogue  of  the  various  modifications  of  the 
human  character,  and  the  sort  of  arguments  adapted  to  each’3. 
The  first  two  books,  which  thus  deal  with  the  invention  of 
arguments  (evpeo-is),  are  followed  by  a  third  occupied  with  the 
two  other  parts  of  rhetoric,  style  (Ae£is)  and  arrangement  (ra£is). 


The  third  book  includes  criticisms  on  the  poetic  style  of  Gorgias  (c.  1), 


1  Dion.  Hal.  de  adm.  vi  dicendi  Dem.  c.  1 — 3. 

2  Thompson’s  Phaedrus ,  p.  xiv. 

3  ib.  p.  xx. 


8o 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


defines  the  main  merits  of  style  as  perspicuity  and  propriety  (c.  2),  touches  on 
‘metaphors’  and  ‘epithets’,  gives  examples  of  bad  taste  in  the  use  of  compound 
or  foreign  words,  or  of  redundant  epithets,  in  prose  (c.  3),  and  distinguishes 
between  ‘similes’  and  ‘metaphors’,  with  examples  of  the  latter  (c.  4).  Purity 
of  Greek  depends  on  the  proper  use  of  connecting  words  or  clauses  ( (rtivdetrfioi ), 
on  the  avoidance  of  periphrasis  and  ambiguity,  and  the  proper  use  of  gender 
and  number.  As  a  general  rule,  every  written  composition  should  be  easy  to 
read,  and  easy  to  deliver.  Therefore  it  must  avoid  all  excess  of  connecting 
words  or  clauses,  and  everything  that  is  difficult  to  punctuate  (a  /atj  padiov 
5ta<ru£cu).  It  must  also  avoid  zeugma  and  parenthesis  (c.  5).  Amplitude  of 
style  may  be  produced  by  the  use  of  periphrasis  ;  conciseness  by  its  avoidance. 
We  must  make  our  meaning  clear  by  the  use  of  metaphors  and  epithets,  but 
we  must  avoid  the  poetical.  Amplitude  may  also  be  produced  by  the  use  of 
the  plural  for  the  singular,  by  the  repetition  of  the  article  before  the  epithet  as 
well  as  before  the  noun,  and  by  the  enumeration  of  negative  characteristics 
(c.  6).  Propriety  of  style  may  be  attained  by  making  it  expressive  of  the  emo¬ 
tions,  true  to  character,  and  appropriate  to  the  subject  (c.  7).  Prose  must  have 
rhythm,  without  metre.  The  first  paean  ( — supplies  an  appropriate 
rhythm  for  the  beginning;  the  fourth  (>■'-'• — )  for  the  end  of  a  sentence.  It 
is  best  to  end  with  a  long  syllable ;  and  the  conclusion  must  be  made  clear, 
not  by  the  transcriber  or  by  any  marginal  mark  of  punctuation  (• Trapaypcuprj ), 
but  by  the  rhythm  (c.  8).  Prose  style  may  either  be  the  continuous  style  (X^rs 
eipop-tv-rj),  which  runs  on'  with  a  continuity  supplied  by  connecting  particles 
alone,  a  style  like  that  of  Herodotus,  or  the  compact  and  pei'iodic  style  (X^is 
KareaTpafA/x^v 77).  The  period  must  be  neither  too  short  nor  too  long ;  if  it 
consists  of  several  clauses,  it  must  be  easily  pronounced  in  a  single  breath. 
The  clauses  may  either  be  simply  parallel  to  one  another,  or  antithetically 
contrasted  ;  ten  examples  of  these  are  added  from  the  Pci7iegyric  of  Isocrates. 
Besides  avrideais  or  ‘contrast  of  sense’,  there  is  also  irapiawais,  where  the 
two  parallel  clauses  are  equal  in  length,  and  vapopLOLuais,  where  there  is  a 
resemblance  either  in  the  beginning  or  in  the  end  of  the  contrasted  words 
(c.  9).  Among  graces  of  style  may  be  mentioned  ‘  metaphor’  (c.  10)  and  vivid 
personification  (c.  n).  The  written  style  is  different  from  the  style  of  debate, 
whether  deliberative  (i.e.  parliamentary)  or  forensic.  The  written  style  is 
precise  ;  that  of  debate  lends  itself  to  effective  delivery.  Delivery  must  not  be 
monotonous,  but  appropriately  varied.  Deliberative  speaking  is  like  scene- 
painting  :  before  a  large  audience  minute  details  are  useless.  The  forensic 
style  is  more  precise.  The  ‘  epideictic  ’  style  (that  of  encomium)  lends  itself 
best  to  writing  ;  its  aim  is  to  be  read  ;  next  to  this  is  the  forensic. — The  rest  of 
the  book  is  concerned  with  the  arrangement  of  the  several  parts  of  the 
speech : — exordium  (7 rpooL/xiov,  c.  14),  narrative  (dnfiyrja is,  c.  16),  proofs 
(■jTLareis,  c.  17),  and  peroration  (iiriXoyos,  c.  19). 

Aristotle  was  born  at  Stageirus  in  384,  lived  at  Athens  from 
367  to  347,  was  tutor  to  Alexander  from  343  to  340,  returned 


VI.] 


ARISTOTLE’S  RHETORIC. 


8l 


to  Athens  from  335  to  323,  and  died  at  Chalcis  in  322.  The 
Rhetoric  was  not  completed  before  338  b.c.  (ii  23,  6),  probably 
not  before  336  (ii  23,  18).  If  336  was  the  date  of 
its  completion,  the  author  was  then  48  years  of  age,  re\sLtionstoS 
and  a  new  interest  is  added  to  his  own  statement  Isocrates  and 

...  .  Demosthenes 

that  the  mind  is  in  its  prime  ‘  about  the  age  of 
49’  (ii  14,  4).  Possibly,  while  writing  these  very  words,  the 
author  was  himself  conscious  for  a  moment  that  he  had  approxi¬ 
mately  reached  the  prime  of  his  own  intellectual  life.  The  year 
338  b.c.  is  the  date  not  only  of  the  battle  of  Chaeroneia,  but  also 
of  the  death  of  ‘that  old  man  eloquent’,  Isocrates,  who  eight 
years  previously  had  urged  Philip  to  levy  war  on  Persia  ( Or .  5  ; 
346  b.c.);  and,  after  the  battle,  wrote  to  the  victor  rejoicing  that 
many  of  his  own  hopes  were  already  fulfilled.  Notwithstanding 
the  traditional  feud  between  Isocrates  and  Aristotle,  which  has 
been  assigned  to  the  latter  part  of  Aristotle’s  first  residence  in 
Athens,  both  were  inspired  with  Macedonian  sympathies.  More¬ 
over,  the  artificial  style  of  Isocrates  lent  itself  readily  to  citations 
illustrating  rhetorical  forms  of  expression.  Hence  we  are  not 
surprised  to  find  that  there  is  no  author  from  whom  Aristotle 
quotes  more  frequently  in  the  Rhetoric ;  there  are  as  many  as  ten 
citations  from  him  in  a  single  chapter  (iii  9).  While  Isocrates 
was  52  years  older  than  Aristotle,  Demosthenes  was  his  exact 
contemporary.  But,  although  Aristotle  was  at  Athens  during  the 
delivery  of  the  First  Philippic  (351)  and  the  Three  Olynthiacs 
(349),  he  never  illustrates  a  single  rule  of  rhetoric  from  any  of  the 
speeches  of  the  great  orator.  To  Demosthenes  he  ascribes  an 
isolated  simile,  which  is  not  to  be  found  in  his  extant  speeches 
(iii  4,  3),  while  he  cites  the  saying  of  a  minor  orator,  that  the 
policy  of  Demosthenes  was  the  cause  of  the  disasters  of  Athens, 
as  an  example  of  fallacious  reasoning  (ii  24,  8).  He  mentions 
the  ‘orators  at  Athens,  and  Isocrates’  (iii  17,  10),  and  (in  a 
passage  open  to  suspicion)  describes  hyperbole  as  a  favourite 
figure  with  the  ‘Attic  orators’  (iii  11,  16).  He  quotes  striking 
metaphors  from  speakers  such  as  Iphicrates,  Leptines,  Cephiso- 
dotus,  Peitholaiis,  Moerocles  and  Polyeuctus,  but  his  quotations 
are  apparently  not  derived  from  any  published  works,  being 
rather  of  the  nature  of  ‘  parliamentary  ’  anecdotes  from  the  every- 
S.  6 


82 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


day  talk  of  the  Lyceum1.  He  illustrates  the  metaphorical  use  of 
fiorjcrcu  from  an  obscure  contemporary  of  Demosthenes  (iii  io,  7), 
though  he  might  have  illustrated  it  better  from  Demosthenes 
himself  (19  §§  92,  129).  It  is  not  entirely  fanciful  to  suppose 
that  Aristotle,  who  lived  as  a  foreigner  at  Athens,  and  had  close 
relations  with  Philip  and  Alexander,  may  have  felt  a  sense  of 
delicacy  in  exemplifying  the  precepts  of  rhetoric  from  the  speeches 
of  the  great  opponent  of  Macedonia.  He  never  quotes  the  other 
anti-Macedonian  orators,  Lycurgus  and  Hypereides,  but  he  also 
makes  no  mention  of  the  Macedonian  orator,  Aeschines.  In 
relation  to  the  foreign  policy  of  Athens,  he  apparently  deemed  it 
best,  as  a  foreigner,  to  remain  neutral.  Of  the  Ten  whom  a  later 
age  recognised  as  the  ‘Attic  orators’,  Isocrates  is  the  only  one 
whom  he  quotes  by  name;  while  a  passage,  which  has  come 
down  to  us  in  the  funeral  oration  wrongly  ascribed  to  Lysias 


(2  §  60),  is  quoted  by  Aristotle  without  the  name  of  any  author 
whatsoever  ( Rhet .  iii  10,  7),  being  probably  written  by  an  un¬ 
known  imitator  of  Isocrates. 

The  study  of  the  style  of  prose  in  the  Athenian  age  was 
mainly  connected  with  the  study  of  rhetoric.  The 

rhetoric  to“  °f  Prose  °f  Public  sPeech  waS  the  firSt  t0  attain  an 
prose  in  artistic  form,  but  other  kinds  of  prose  had  a  closer 

generai  connexion  with  it  than  they  have  in  modern  times. 

In  the  domain  of  history,  the  style  of  Thucydides  shows  the 


influence  of  the  Sicilian  rhetoric ;  and  the  historian  readily  resorts 
to  speeches  as  a  means  of  expressing  the  political  opinions  of  the 
day,  while  he  employs  the  medium  of  a  dialogue  to  give  a 
dramatic  representation  of  the  controversy  between  Athens  and 
Melos.  In  the  next  century,  two  prominent  historians,  Ephorus 
and  Theopompus,  were  both  of  them  pupils  of  that  trainer  of 
rhetoricians,  Isocrates.  The  criticisms  in  the  Rhetoric  are  not 
confined  to  the  criticism  of  speeches.  A  particular  kind  of  prose- 
style  is  there  (iii  9,  2)  exemplified  from  Herodotus,  while  many  of 
the  precepts  apply  to  prose  in  general,  and  not  a  few  to  poetry  as 
well.  From  the  time  of  Aristotle  downwards  literary  criticism 
forms  part  of  the  province  of  rhetoric. 


1  Cp.  Wilamowitz,  Aristoleles  und  Athen ,  i  350. 


VI.] 


THE  STUDY  OF  PROSE  AUTHORS. 


83 


The  earliest  complete  work  in  Greek  prose  now  extant  is  that 
of  Herodotus  (484 -c.  425  b.c.),  who,  according  to 
the  Chronicle  of  Eusebius,  read  his  ‘  books  ’  aloud  The  study  of 
to  the  Council  at  Athens  about  446-4  b.c.  Ac-  proseauthors 
cording  to  Lucian  ( A'etion ,  1),  he  recited  his  history  to  an 
enraptured  audience  at  Olympia,  and  his  books,  which  were  nine 
in  number,  were  thenceforth  known  by  the  names  of  the  nine 
Muses.  .  The  biographers  of  Thucydides  have  added  that  the 
future  historian  of  the  Peloponnesian  war  was  himself  present  and 
was  moved  to  tears  by  the  recital ;  but  the  story  is  generally 
regarded  as  unworthy  of  credit1.  Some  of  the  statements  of 
Thucydides  on  early  Greek  navies  may  have  been  derived  from 
Herodotus,  whom  he  appears  to  be  tacitly  correcting  in  his 
account  of  the  affair  of  Cylon  (Thuc.  i  126)  and  the  prerogatives 
of  the  Spartan  kings  (1  20).  He  claims  that  his  own  conclusions 
on  the  early  state  of  Hellas  are  more  trustworthy  than  those 
derived  from  his  predecessors,  whether  ‘poets’  or  ‘writers  of 
prose  (i  21),  but  the  only  historian  whom  he  mentions  by 
name  is  Hellamcus  (i  py)2.  Similarly  the  only  historian  named 
by  Herodotus  is  Hecataeus  (ii  143  etc.),  who  had  already 
been  criticised  by  Heracleitus  in  the  celebrated  saying:  ‘much 
learning  does  not  teach  sense;  else  it  would  have  taught  He¬ 
siod  and  Pythagoras,  and  also  Xenophanes  and  Hecataeus’ 
(frag.  16).  Thucydides  in  turn  was  studied  by  Demosthenes, 
as  is  clear  from  the  style3  as  well  as  from  the  matter4  of  his 
speeches,  however  little  we  may  credit  Lucian’s  statement  that 
the  orator  transcribed  the  work  of  the  historian  eight  times 
over  (adv.  Indoctum ,  4).  The  style  of  Demosthenes,  again 
is  studied  and  criticised  by  Aeschines  (hi  166),  who  quotes  a 
senes  of  harsh  metaphors,  which  he  ascribes  to  his  opponent. 
Lastly,  the  dialogues  of  Plato  were  studied  and  quoted  by  his 
great  pupil,  Aristotle.  The  citations  fall  under  four  heads: 
either  ( a )  the  name  of  Plato,  or  Socrates,  is  added  to  the  title  of 


P- 


*  ^ahl™ann’s  Life  of  Herodotus  (G.  V.  Cox,  1845) ;  and  Stein’s  ed.,  p.  xxi. 

On  Prose  Writings  in  Thucydides’  time,’  see  Thuc.  i,  ed.  Forbes 
xll — lxxx.  ’ 


3 

4 


Dion.  Hal.  Thuc.  53,  54  (Dem.  14  §  13) ;  Cp.  Blass  Atl.  Ber.  111  i2  m  o7 
Phil,  m  47—51,  01.  iii  21,  Lept.  73. 


6 — 2 


84 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Place  of 
Prose  in 
education 


the  dialogue ;  or  ( b )  the  title  alone  is  given ;  or  (e)  the  name  of 
Plato  is  mentioned  without  specification  of  any  particular  work ; 
or  (d)  the  reference  is  in  general  terms  and  in  the  plural  number, 
introduced  by  phrases  such  as  ‘certain  persons  say’  or  ‘think,’ 
where  some  particular  work  of  Plato’s  is  either  certainly  or 
probably  meant1.  The  evidence  of  these  citations  is  of  some 
importance  in  determining  the  genuineness  of  the  dialogues 
ascribed  to  Plato2. 

While  the  place  of  poetry  in  Athenian  education  was  due 
partly  to  a  belief  in  the  poet  as  a  teacher  and  as  an 
inspired  being,  partly  to  the  fact  that  poetry  attained 
an  artistic  form  at  an  earlier  date  than  prose  (besides 
being  easier  to  commit  to  memory),  the  place  of  prose  was 
distinctly  subordinate.  In  elementary  education  prose  appears  to 
have  been  partly  represented  by  the  traditional  fables  of  Aesop 
(Ar.  Birds  471).  In  Plato’s  Phaedrus  (274  c)  Socrates  is 
described  as  disparaging  reading  and  writing  in  comparison  with 
talking  and  memory;  but  in  Xenophon’s  Memorabilia  (i  6,  14)  we 
find  him  unrolling  and  perusing,  with  his  friends,  ‘  the  treasures 
of  the  wise  men  of  old,  which  they  wrote  down  in  books  and  left 
behind  them.’  As  a  young  man,  he  had  ‘  heard  someone  reading 
aloud  ’  a  book  of  Anaxagoras,  and  hastened  to  obtain  it  (. Phaedo 
97  b).  ‘Strains  written  in  prose,’  and  ‘compositions  in  prose, 
without  rhythm  or  harmony,’  are  discussed,  as  well  as  poetry,  in 
the  scheme  of  education  in  Plato’s  Laws  (809  b,  810  b),  but  the 
‘  works  handed  down  by  many  writers  of  this  class  ’  (whether  in 
prose  or  verse)  are  deemed  ‘dangerous,’  while  a  discourse  like 
that  in  the  Laws  is  described  as  ‘  inspired  of  heaven  ’  and  ‘  exactly 
like  a  poem,’  and  as  in  fact  an  appropriate  pattern  for  other 
discourses  to  be  used  in  the  education  of  youth  (811  c-e). 

After  the  death  of  Plato  the  original  manuscripts  of  his 
dialogues  were  possibly  preserved  in  the  school 
of  the  Academy.  For  eight  years  the  school  was 
under  the  care  of  his  nephew  and  successor,  Speu- 
sippus,  and  afterwards  for  twenty-five  under  that 
of  Xenocrates,  who  was  succeeded  by  Polemon  and  others. 

1  See  the  Index  of  Bonitz,  and  of  Heitz. 

2  Zeller’s  Plato,  54 — 77. 


Early  trans¬ 
mission  of  the 
works  of  Plato 
and  Aristotle 


VI.] 


MSS  OF  PLATO  AND  ARISTOTLE. 


85 


Copies  of  the  original  mss  were  doubtless  made  at  an  early  date, 
and  some  of  these  may  have  been  transmitted  from  Athens  to 
Alexandria,  possibly  through  the  agency  of  Demetrius  of 
Phaleron  h  The  earliest  extant  ms  of  any  part  of  Plato  has 
been  found  in  Egypt.  It  is  the  Petrie  papyrus  from  Gurob  in  the 
Faiyftm,  containing  about  12  columns  of  the  Phaedo ,  being 
portions  of  a  neatly  written  trade-copy  assigned  to  the  middle 
of  the  third  century  b.c.1 2 

On  the  death  of  Aristotle,  the  school  of  the  Lyceum,  with  the 
library  of  its  founder,  remained  for  more  than  34  years  under 
the  control  of  his  successor  Theophrastus.  During  this  time 
Aristotle’s  pupil,  Eudemus  of  Rhodes,  wrote  to  Theophrastus 
for  a  transcript  of  a  passage  in  the  Physics  which  was  missing  in 
his  own  copy  of  that  work3,  and  doubtless  other  copies  of  the 
master’s  manuscripts  were  in  circulation  during  his  successor’s 
life-time4.  Theophrastus,  on  his  death  in  or  about  287  b.c.,  left  his 
own  library  and  that  of  Aristotle  to  his  pupil  Neleus,  who  removed 
it  to  his  home  at  Scepsis  in  the  Troad.  A  few  years  later  the 
town  passed  into  the  possession  of  the  Kings  of  the  Attalid 
dynasty,  who  from  about  230  b.c.  began  to  found  a  great 
Library  at  Pergamon  to  vie  with  that  of  the  Ptolemies  at 
Alexandria.  The  heirs  of  Neleus  prudently  concealed  the  mss 
in  a  cellar,  awaiting  an  opportunity  for  sending  them  safely  out  of 
the  country.  The  mss  had  thus  remained  in  their  possession 
for  more  than  150  years,  when,  about  100  b.c.,  they  were  bought 
by  Apellicon  of  Teos,  and  restored  to  Athens.  After  the  capture 
of  Athens  by  Sulla  in  86  b.c.,  they  were  transported  from  Athens 
to  Rome,  where  they  were  consulted  by  scholars  such  as  Tyran- 
nion,  Andronicus5,  and  others;  but,  owing  to  long  neglect,  many 

1  Grote’s  Plato,  i  122,  135,  169;  criticised  in  Zeller’s  Plato ,  51 — 3,  and 
esp.  in  Gomperz,  Platonische  Aufsdtze,  ii  1899. 

2  Mahaffy’s  Petrie  Papyri  (1891)  pi.  viii — x;  E.  M.  Thompson’s  Palaeo¬ 
graphy ,  p.  120;  and  Kenyon’s  Palaeography  of  Gk  papyri ,  p.  59 — 63.  Exhibited 
in  the  British  Museum  ;  Case  A,  1.  See  p.  87. 

3  Zeller’s  Aristotle,  i  136;  Grote’s  Plato ,  i  140. 

4  Stahr,  Aristoielia,  ii  1 — 166,  294  f;  Susemihl,  Gr.  Litt.  Alex.,  ii  299  f, 
note  324. 

8  Added  in  Plutarch’s  Sulla,  26. 


86 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


of  them  had  become  illegible,  and  the  copies  made  after  they  had 
passed  into  the  hands  of  Apellicon  were  disfigured  with  unskilful 
conjectures  and  restorations.  The  above  story  of  their  fortunes 
is  told  us  by  Tyrannion’s  pupil,  Strabo,  who  adds  that  Aristotle 
was  the  first  to  ‘collect  books/  thus  setting  ‘an  example  after¬ 
wards  followed  by  the  Kings  of  Egypt1.’  The  story  is  partly 
confirmed  in  one  passage  of  Athenaeus  (214  d  e),  but  contradicted 
in  another  (3  b),  carelessly  asserting  that  all  the  books  of  Aristotle 
in  the  possession  of  Neleus  were  purchased  for  the  Alexandrian 
library  by  Ptolemy  II,  who  is  elsewhere  described  as  possessing 
more  than  1000  books  or  rolls  of  the  Aristotelian  writings2.  The 
earliest  extant  manuscript  of  any  of  the  Aristotelian  writings  is  the 
papyrus  containing  Aristotle’s  Constitution  of  Athens,  found  in 
Egypt  in  1890  and  ascribed  to  about  100  a.d.3 4 

Apart  from  Aristotle’s  library  we  hear  of  no  important  collec¬ 
tion  of  books  in  the  Athenian  age,  though  books  are  said  to  have 
been  collected  by  Polycrates  of  Samos,  by  Peisistratus  and 
Euripides  (Athen.  p.  3),  and  by  a  pupil  of  Plato  and  Isocrates, 
the  ‘tyrant’  Clearchus  who  founded  a  library  at  the  Pontic 
Heraclea  in  Bithynia  before  364  b.c.  (Photius  Bibl.  222  b),  while 
in  400  b.c.  ‘many  books’  are  mentioned  by  Xenophon  (A nab.  vii 
5,  14)  as  found  in  the  cargo  of  some  vessels  wrecked  on  the  coast 
of  the  Euxine.  In  or  after  the  first  century  b.c.  an  incomplete 
title  of  a  speech  of  Demosthenes  and  of  certain  portions  of 
Hellanicus  appears  by  the  side  of  Aeschylus,  Sophocles,  Crates, 
Diphilus,  and  the  Meleager  and  Alcmaeon  of  Euripides,  in  an 
inscription  conjecturally  supposed  to  contain  a  list  of  books 
presented  by  Athenian  youths  to  the  library  of  their  gymnasium* . 
We  know  for  certain  that  100  volumes  were  annually  presented  by 
the  youth  of  Athens  to  the  library  of  the  gymnasium  called  the 
Ptolemaion ,  which  was  founded  at  Athens  early  in  the  Alexandrian 
age  (probably  by  Ptolemy  Philadelphus)  and  was  visited  in  the 

1  Strabo,  pp.  608 — 9  ;  Grote’s  Plato ,  i  138  f. 

2  Schol.  Arist.  22  a  12.  Cp.  Zeller’s  Aristotle ,  c.  iii,  and  Shute’s  History 
of  the  Aristotelian  Writings ,  pp.  29 — 45. 

3  Complete  facsimile  edited  by  Kenyon  (1891)  ;  specimen  given  by  E.  M. 
Thompson  /.  c.  p.  140. 

4  C.  I.  A.  ii  992. 


VI.] 


LIBRARIES. 


87 


Roman  age  by  Cicero1  and  Pausanias2.  But  in  the  Athenian  age 
itself,  it  was  not  so  much  the  books  that  the  Athenian  read  as 
the  words  that  he  heard,  in  the  theatre,  in  the  law-courts,  in  the 
groves  of  Academe  and  in  the  walks  of  the  Lyceum,  that  served 
to  complete  his  education.  In  the  language  of  John  Henry 
Newman,  ‘it  was  what  the  student  gazed  on,  what  he  heard,  what 
he  caught  by  the  magic  of  sympathy,  not  what  he  read,  which 
was  the  education  furnished  by  Athens 3.” 

1  De  Finibus  v  1,  1. 

2  i  17,  2  (with  Frazer’s  note).  Cp.  C.  /.  A.  ii  465,  468,  478,  480,  482, 
gdocrau  Kal  /3ij3\la  els  ttjv  UToXe/xalip  (3i(3\iodr]Kr]v ,  and  Dittenberger,  De 
Ephebis ,  p.  51  ;  Curtius,  Stadtgeschichte  von  A  then,  lxxxii  238,  282  ;  and 
P.  Girard,  V Education  Athiniemxe,  p.  159  f. 

3  Historical  Sketches,  p.  40. 


ft*-  ni  r*  e/tf 

Af  rrc°A[  Aa  J0|xrC0A[r-rApA'K5 

From  the  earliest  extant  ms  of  the  Phaedo  of  Plato, 

p.  83  a  (c.  250  B.C.). 

(E.  M.  Thompson’s  Palaeogi'aphy ,  p.  120.) 


ccuadrjxreojv  TceiBovaa.  de  eK  tovtu/j. 
<He>v  avaxupeiv  oao/ut.  /xrj  avayKT] 

XP") i<r<B>ai  avT-qv  5’  eis  eavrrjv  av\- 
\eyeix9ai  koli  adpoi^ecrdou  7 rapa/ce- 
\evecr<B>a.i  Triareveiv  Se  fxvbevi  aWwi 


CHAPTER  VII. 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  GRAMMAR  AND  ETYMOLOGY. 

We  are  told  by  Herodotus  (v  58)  that  the  Phoenicians  who 
came  with  Cadmus  brought  with  them  the  letters  of 

Herodotus  .  ° 

the  Phoenician  alphabet,  and  that  in  course  of  time 
they  adapted  the  method  of  writing  them  to  the  requirements  of 
the  Greek  language.  In  the  temple  of  the  Ismenian  Apollo  at 
Thebes,  Herodotus  had  himself  seen  three  tripods  inscribed  with 
‘  Cadmeian  ’  letters,  ‘  for  the  most  part  resembling  those  of  the 
Ionians  \  He  assigns  the  three  inscriptions  to  the  age  of  Lai'us 
in  the  third,  and  to  those  of  Oedipus  and  Laodamas  in  the  fourth 
and  sixth  generations  from  Cadmus  (v  59-61).  We  are  also  told 
by  Herodotus  that  the  Ionians  who  lived  nearest  to  the  Phoe¬ 
nicians  (e.g.  in  Cyprus  and  Rhodes)  borrowed  the  Phoenician 
alphabet,  with  a  few  changes,  and  that  they  habitually  called 
them  the  ‘Phoenician’  letters  (v  58), — a  statement  confirmed  by 
an  inscription  found  near  the  Ionian  town  of  Teos1. 

Spelling  was  taught  by  means  of  a  series  of  syllables  combining 
the  consonants  with  all  the  vowels  in  succession.  Fragments  of 
a  tile  have  been  found  in  Attica  bearing  the  syllables  a p  /3ap  yap 
Sap,  ep  (3ep  yep  Sep  etc. 2  The  comic  poet  Callias  wrote  a  ‘  letter- 
play  ’  (ypapLpLaTLKr)  rpaywSia)  in  which  the  dramatis  personae  were 
the  letters  of  the  alphabet,  all  of  which  were  enumerated  in  the 
prologue,  with  a  separate  enumeration  of  the  vowels  at  a  later 
point.  The  play  included  a  spelling-chorus,  ftf/ra  a\<f>a  /3a  etc., 
and  some  of  its  choral  arrangements  are  said  to  have  been 

1  C.  I.  G.  3044  —  I.  G.  A.  497  B  37  ( c .  475  B.C.),  5s  cLv . . .</>oiviKr]ia  iKKbyJ/eL 
(Roberts,  Greek  Epigraphy ,  p.  170). 

2  Philistor ,  iv  327. 


CHAP.  VII.] 


THE  GREEK  ALPHABET. 


89 


imitated  in  the  Medea  of  Euripides  (431  b.c.), — a  statement  of  no 
value  except  as  an  indication  of  the  probable  date  of  the  play1. 
In  the  Theseus  of  Euripides  a  slave  who  could  not  read  was 
represented  as  describing  the  shape  of  each  of  the  characters  in  the 
name  of  0H2EY2,  and  the  same  device  was  adopted  in  the  case 
of  the  same  name  by  Agathon  and  Theodectes,  while  Sophocles 
is  said  to  have  represented  the  shapes  of  various  letters  of  the 
alphabet,  in  one  of  his  satyric  dramas,  by  means  of  the  attitudes 
assumed  by  a  dancer  (Athen.  p.  453-4).  In  the  archonship  of 
Eucleides  (403  b.c.)  it  was  ordered  at  Athens  on  the  proposal  of 
Archinus  that  all  public  documents  should  be  written  in  the  Ionic 
characters2;  and  the  ‘treaty  with  the  barbarian’  (commonly 
called  the  ‘peace  of  Cimon’  or  ‘Callias’,  after  466  or  449  b.c.) 
is  denounced  by  Theopompus  as  a  fabrication,  on  the  ground 
that  the  characters  used  in  the  inscription  recording  it  were  those 
of  the  Ionic  instead  of  the  Attic  alphabet3.  The  fact  that 
Euripides,  who  died  three  years  before  the  archonship  of  Eu¬ 
cleides,  recognises  H  as  the  second  letter  of  ‘  Theseus  ’  (as  above 
noticed)  is  part  of  the  proof  that  the  Ionic  alphabet  was  in 
literary  and  private  use  at  Athens  before  403  b.c. 

The  current  division  of  letters  (crrot^eta),  as  may  be  inferred 
from  three  passages  of  Plato,  was  as  follows : 

(1)  ‘voiced’  or  ‘vocal’  letters  (<f)oivyjevTa,  voca/es), 
our  ‘vowels’;  (2)  ‘voiceless’  letters  (a<£ ojva),  our  ‘consonants’. 
The  latter  were  divided  into  (a)  letters  not  only  ‘  voiceless  ’  but 
also  ‘  without  sound  ’  (a<f>(i)va  kcu  <x</>0oy ya),  our  ‘  mutes  ’ ;  and 
(b)  letters  that  are  ‘  not  vocal  ’,  but  ‘  not  without  sound  ’  (cfxavrjevTa 
fxkv  ov,  ov  /xivTQL  ye  a<f>0oy ya),  i.e.  A,  /x,  v,  p,  9,  afterwards  known  as 
‘semivowels’  (r}fXL<f)uiva)4.  A  passage  in  the  Tittiaeus  (75  d) 
mentions  the  ‘  teeth  ’,  ‘  tongue  ’  and  ‘  lips  ’  as  producing  ‘  the 
river  of  speech  ’,  which  is  ‘  the  fairest  and  noblest  of  all  streams  ’. 
In  the  Cratylus  (394  d)  Plato  notices  that  the  only  letters  which 
have  no  special  names  are  E,  Y,  O,  H,  thus  showing  that  the 

1  Cp.  Verrall’s  Medea ,  p.  xxiii. 

2  Su'idas,  s.v.  ZajXLwv  drjfxos. 

3  Harpocration,  s.v.  'Attlkols  ypdfifxacrLV. 

4  Cratylus  424  c ;  Philebus  18  B,  c  (where  t<x  fitaa  are  the  ‘  semivowels  ’) ; 
Theaet.  203  B. 


90 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 

names  epsilon ,  upsilon ,  omicron  and  omega  are  of  later  origin,  the 
Greeks  in  this  age  calling  these  letters  ct,  v,  ov  and  co.  The  name 
epsilon ,  or  ‘simple’  c,  was  afterwards  introduced  to  distinguish 
that  letter  from  the  diphthong  at,  and  similarly  upsilon ,  or  ‘simple’ 
v,  to  distinguish  that  letter  from  the  diphthong  ot,  and  both  these 
names  belong  to  the  late  Byzantine  age,  when  €  and  at,  and  v  and 
ot  respectively,  were  pronounced  alike.  The  name  omega  is  also 
late :  a\<f>a  and  O  (not  omega)  are  recognised  in  the  best  mss  of 
the  Greek  Testament,  ly to  et/xt  to  dA<£a  /cat  to  <3  (Rev.  i  8),  and  in 
Prudentius  : — ‘  a\<f>a  et  to  cognominatus  ’\ 

The  earliest  trace  of  any  classification  of  words  is  to  be  found 
in  Plato.  ‘  Grammar  ’  was  at  first  regarded  mainly  as  the  art  of 
reading  and  writing  (p.  6) ;  but  it  also  included  the  theory  of  the 
nature  of  sounds  and  of  accent,  with  questions  of  quantity  and 
rhythm,  and  in  these  respects  it  was  closely  connected  with 
Music.  With  the  classification  of  words  grammar  entered  on  a 
new  stage.  It  is  traditionally  held  that  Plato  was  the  first  to 
distinguish  between  the  Noun  and  the  Verb,  calling  the  former 
ovofxa  and  the  latter  prjp, a.  But  the  correspondence  between 
these  terms  is  incomplete1 2,  and  the  distinction  drawn  by  Plato 
between  ovo/xa  and  p-^/xa  does  not  answer  to  the  grammatical 
distinction  between  Noun  and  Verb,  but  to  the  logical  distinction 
between  Subject  and  Predicate3.  This  is  true  even  of  the  passage 
in  the  Sophistes  (261  e),  which  is  the  main  support  of  those  who 
ascribe  to  Plato  the  first  distinction  between  Noun  and  Verb  as 
parts  of  speech.  He  there  says  : — ‘  There  are  two  kinds  of  inti¬ 
mations  of  being  which  are  given  by  the  voice’,  ‘one  of  them 
called  ovo/juiTa  and  the  other  prjpaTa  ’ ;  ‘  that  which  denotes  action 
we  call  prjp.a  ’,  ‘  the  articulate  sign  set  on  those  who  do  the  actions 
we  call  ovo/xa ’ ;  ‘a  succession  of  6vop.ara  or  pyj^ara  alone  is  not 
discourse ’ ;  ‘it  is  only  when  they  are  mingled  together  that 
language  is  formed  ’ 4.  prjp a  in  Plato  includes  every  kind  of 

1  Mayor’s  First  Greek  Reader ,  p.  lii ;  Blass,  Pronunciation  of  Ancient 
Greek ,  p.  20. 

2  Classen,  De  Gram.  Gr.  primordiis  (1829),  p.  45  f. 

3  Deuschle,  Die  Plat.  Sprachphilosophie  (1852),  p.  8  f. 

4  Cp.  Theaet.  20 6  D,  Symp.  198  B,  199  B,  Rep.  340  E,  462  C,  464  A,  474  A, 
562  c,  Tim.  49  e;  also  Crat.  425  A,  431  B  (Deuschle,  p.  9). 


VII.] 


THE  BEGINNINGS  OF  GRAMMAR. 


91 


predicate.  Thus,  in  the  Cratylus  (399  b),  A  a  <£i'A.os  (being 
predicated  of  a  person)  is  called  a  pyj/^a,  while  its  derivative 
Am^iAo?  is  an  ovofxa.  In  later  times  Plato’s  ovop.a  and  prj/xa  were 
regarded  as  grammatical  parts  of  speech,  and  the  question  whether 
this  division  was  meant  by  Plato  to  be  exhaustive,  or  whether  the 
other  parts  of  speech  were  only  omitted  because  they  were  com¬ 
paratively  unimportant,  was  discussed  by  Plutarch  in  his  Platonic 
Questions  ( Moralia  ii  1008),  and  decided  in  the  latter  sense.  In 
Plato  we  find  suggestions  of  the  distinction  afterwards  drawn  in 
grammar  between  the  Substantive  and  the  Adjective  (cp.  i™- 
wp-ia  in  Parm.  13 1  a,  Soph.  225  d,  Phaedr.  238  a);  he  also 
recognises  Number  (Soph.  237  e),  Tenses  of  Verbs  (Parm.  15 1  e, 
156  a;  Soph.  262  d),  and  ‘Active  and  Passive’  (Soph.  219  b; 
Philebus  26  e)1. 

Moods  are  not  yet  mentioned,  but  Protagoras  had  already 
distinguished  in  rhetoric  some  of  the  various  modes  of  expression 
which  correspond  to  the  Moods  of  grammar  (p.  27).  He  had 
also  divided  nouns  into  three  classes,  male,  female,  and  inanimate 
(trKevrj),  a  classification  apparently  founded  on  a  real  or  natural, 
and  not  on  a  grammatical  basis,  ‘  male  ’  and  ‘  female  ’  nouns 
denoting  male  and  female  persons,  or  distinctions  in  sex,  whether 
in  mankind  or  among  animals  in  general,  and  things  inanimate 
including  the  names  of  all  other  objects,  natural  and  artificial, 
real  and  abstract.  This  last  class  contains  many  words  which  are 
grammatically  masculine  or  feminine,  but  the  classification  of 
Protagoras  can  hardly  be  identified  with  a  classification  of  nouns 
as  masculine,  feminine  and  neuter.  Protagoras  uses  in  the  sense 
of  ‘  classes  ’  the  same  term  (yevrj),  which  was  afterwards  adopted 
in  grammar  to  denote  ‘  genders  ’ 2. 

In  the  earlier  Greek  philosophers  we  find  a  few  traces  of 
speculation  on  the  origin  of  language.  Thus  Pythagoras  (fl.  540- 
510  b.c.)  held  that,  next  to  ‘number’,  the  highest  wisdom 
belonged  to  ‘him  who  gave  things  their  names’3.  Heracleitus 

1  Deuschle,  pp.  10,  17,  18  ;  cp.  Schomann,  Die  Lehr e  von  den  Redetheilen 
(1862),  p.  2  ;  and  Steinthal,  Sprachwissenschaft,  i2  137  f. 

2  Cope  in  Journ.  of  Cl.  and  S.  Phil,  iii  48  f.,  and  on  Arist.  Rhet.  iii  5,  5 
and  Introd.  p.  293.  Ar.  Clouds  659  ff.  may  be  a  satire  on  Protagoras. 

3  6  tcl  dvdfxara  tois  Trpay/j.a<Ti  dl/xevos,  Proclus  on  Plato’s  Cratylus ,  p.  6 ; 
Cicero,  Tusc.  Disp.  i  25;  Steinthal,  p.  157  f. 


92 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


(fl.  503  b.c.),  though  celebrated  for  the  obscurity  of  his  language, 
appears  to  have  laid  stress  on  linguistic  expression,  but  we  know 
of  no  scientific  enunciation  of  his  on  this  subject.  He  is,  how¬ 
ever,  known  to  have  held  that  words  existed  naturally  (<£vo-ei). 
Words,  he  said,  were  not  like  the  artificial,  but  like  the  natural 
images  of  visible  things ;  they  resembled  shadows,  and  reflexions 
in  water,  or  images  seen  in  mirrors1.  Democritus  (460-357  b.c.) 
described  the  names  of  the  gods  as  their  ‘vocal  images’2.  His 
contemporary  Hippocrates  (c.  460-359  b.c.)  called  names  ‘  ordi¬ 
nances  of  nature  ’  (<£uoros  vo/aodeTyj/xaTa) ;  and  Antisthenes  (fl. 
400  b.c.)  wrote  on  names  and  on  language  in  connexion  with  his 
dialectical  theories3.  But  our  knowledge  of  these  speculations  is 
very  imperfect.  In  the  case  of  Plato  we  have  more  material  for 
forming  an  opinion,  but  even  here  there  is  much  that  is  confused 
and  perplexing.  It  was  said  of  Plato  that  he  was  the  first  to 
speculate  on  the  nature  of  ‘grammar’4;  and  some  of  the  passages 
on  language  in  his  dialogues  have  been  collected  by  Stobaeus5 6, 
but  all  these  are  of  less  importance  than  the  dialogue  known  as 
the  Cratylus.  . 

In  the  Cratylus  there  are  three  interlocutors  holding  different  views  as  to 
the  nature  and  origin  of  language.  (1)  Hermogenes  holds  that  language  is 
conventional ,  and  that  all  names  have  their  origin  in  convention  and  mutual 
agreement  (^wdriKT)  ral  opLoXoyia,  384  d)  ;  like  the  names  of  slaves,  they  may  be 
given  and  altered  at  pleasure.  (2)  Cratylus,  a  follower  of  Heracleitus,  holds 
that  language  is  natural ,  and  that  every  name  is  either  a  true  name  or  not  a 
name  at  all;  he  cannot  conceive  of  degrees  of  imitation;  a  word  is  either  the 
perfect  expression  of  a  thing  or  a  mere  inarticulate  sound.  (3)  Socrates 
takes  up  an  intermediate  position,  holding  that  language  is  founded  on  nature , 
but  modified  by  conveniio?ie.  In  his  view  ‘  language  is  conventional  and  also 
natural,  and  the  true  conventional-natural  is  also  the  rational;  it  is  a  work  not 
of  chance  but  of  art ;  the  dialectician  is  the  artificer  of  words,  and  the  legislator 

1  Ammonius  on  Aristotle,  de  Interp.  p.  24  B  Aid.,  quoted  by  Lersch, 
Sprachphilosophie ,  i  1 1  f ;  cp.  Plato,  Theaet.  206  D;  Steinthal,  pp.  171,  173. 

2  ay aXfiara  (pcjvrjevra,  Olympiodorus  on  Plato,  Philebus,  p.  242  ;  Steinthal, 
p.  182. 

3  Zeller’s  Plato,  p.  2  t  1  f. 

4  Favorinus  ap.  Diog.  Laert.  Ill  i  19,  25,  trpuiTos  edeuprjae  rrjs  ypa/xpLariKijs 
tt)v  di jvafuv. 

5  8r  §§  14 — 16  ( Philebus ,  p.  186  ;  Theaet.  202  B  ;  Sophist ,  261  d). 

6  Lewis  Campbell,  Encycl.  Brit.  ed.  9,  s.v.  Plato. 


VII.] 


PLATO’S  CRATYLUS. 


93 


gives  authority  to  them’1.  Words  are  the  expressions  or  imitations  of  things 
by  means  of  sound.  In  the  extravagance  of  some  of  his  etymologies,  Socrates 
is  regarded  by  Jowett  as  ‘ridiculing  the  fancies  of  a  new  school  of  sophists  and 
grammarians2;  but,  ‘when  the  fervour  of  his  etymological  enthusiasm  has 
abated’,  he  ends,  as  he  began,  with  ‘a  rational  explanation  of  language’. 
‘Having  explained  compound  words,  by  resolving  them  into  their  original 
elements,  he  proceeds  to  analyse  simple  words  into  the  letters  of  which  they 
are  composed’.  He  ‘supposes  words  to  be  formed  by  the  imitation  of  ideas  in 
sounds ;  he  also  recognises  the  effect  of  time,  the  influence  of  foreign  languages, 
the  desire  of  euphony...;  and  he  admits  a  certain  element  of  chance’3.  He 
says,  apparently  in  irony,  ‘my  notion  is,  that  we  may  put  in  and  pull  out 
letters  at  pleasure  and  alter  the  accents,  and  we  may  make  words  into 
sentences  and  sentences  into  words’  (399  a).  The  name  avdpunros  (he  adds)  is 
a  case  in  point,  for  a  letter  has  been  omitted  and  the  accent  changed;  the 
original  meaning  being  6  avadpCov  a  birojirev — ‘he  who  looks  up  at  what  he 
sees’.  He  observes  in  a  more  serious  mood  that,  in  speaking  of  the  gods,  we 
are  only  speaking  of  our  names  for  them: — ‘the  truest  names  of  the  gods  are 
those  which  they  give  themselves,  but  these  are  unknown  to  us’  (400  e). 
Inquiring  about  the  human  names  of  the  gods,  he  makes  many  fanciful 
suggestions,  the  only  one  which  can  be  accepted  being  his  derivation  of  the 
name  of  Pallas  cbro  rod  ttAWcip  r a  07rXa  (407  a).  He  suspects  that  certain 
words,  which  cannot  be  explained  with  the  help  of  Greek  alone,  must  be  of 
foreign  origin,  ‘for  the  Greeks,  especially  those  who  were  under  the  dominion 
of  the  barbarians,  often  borrowed  words  from  them.  Consider  whether  this 
word  irvp  is  not  foreign;  for  it  is  not  easily  brought  into  relation  with  Greek, 
and  the  Phrygians  may  be  observed  to  have  this  same  word  slightly  inflected, 
just  as  they  have  vdup  and  Kbves,  and  many  other  words’  (409  D,  410  a). 
kolk6v  (4 i 6 a)  and  6(peWeiv  (417c)  he  considers  ‘foreign’  words;  but  ‘the  idea 
that  the  Greek  language  and  that  of  the  barbarians  could  have  had  a  common 
source  never  entered  his  mind'4.  After  proposing  some  far-fetched  etymo¬ 
logies,  he  excuses  himself  by  adding  ‘  you  must  remember  that  all  language  is 
in  a  process  of  disguise  or  transition;  and  letters  are  taken  out  and  put  in  at 
pleasure,  and  twisted  and  twirled  about  in  the  lapse  of  ages — sometimes  for 
the  sake  of  euphony’  (414c).  Again,  ‘mere  antiquity  may  often  prevent  our 
recognising  words,  after  all  their  complications ;  and  we  must  remember  that, 
however  far  we  carry  back  our  analysis  of  words,  there  must  be  some  ultimate 
elements  which  can  be  no  further  analysed’  (421  D,  e).  ‘Secondary  names 
derive  their  significance  from  the  primary;  how,  then,  do  the  primary  indicate 
anything?’  (422  A).  ‘The  only  way  in  which  the  body  can  express  anything 
is  by  imitation',  and  the  tongue  or  mouth  can  imitate  as  well  as  the  rest  of  the 

1  Jowett’s  Plato ,  i  6221=2573. 

2  ib.  p.  6241,  259s. 

3  ib.  p.  6251,  259s. 

4  Max  Muller’s  Lectures ,  i  132  (1866). 


94 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


body.  What,  then,  is  a  name?  A  name  is  not  a  musical  or  pictorial  imita¬ 
tion,  but  an  imitation  of  that  kind  which  expresses  the  nature  of  the  thing; 
and  is  the  invention  not  of  a  musician,  or  of  a  painter,  but  of  a  namer’  (423 
a-e).  “The  way  to  analyse  names  will  be  by  going  back  to  the  letters ,  or 
primary  elements  of  which  they  are  composed.  First,  we  classify  the  letters 
of  the  alphabet,  and,  when  we  have  learnt  the  letters  singly,  we  shall  learn  to 
know  them  in  their  various  combinations.  We  may  apply  letters  to  the 
expression  of  objects,  and  form  them  into  syllables;  and  these  again  into 
words  (424  c-e).  I  mean  that  this  was  the  way  in  which  the  ancients  formed 
language.  Whether  the  primary  and  secondary  elements  are  rightly  given,  is 
a  question  which  we  can  answer  by  conjecture  alone.  But  still  we  hold  that 
the  method  which  we  are  pursuing  is  the  true  and  only  method  of  discovery. 
Otherwise  we  must  have  recourse  to  a  Deus  ex  machina,  and  say  that  ‘the 
gods  gave  the  first  names,  and  therefore  they  are  right’;  and  this  will  perhaps 
be  our  best  device,  unless  indeed  we  say  that  the  barbarians  are  older  than  we, 
and  that  we  learnt  of  them,  or  that  the  lapse  of  ages  has  cast  a  veil  over  the 
truth”  (425  a-e).  Primary  words  which  do  not  admit  of  derivation  from 
foreign  languages  ‘must  be  resolved  into  the  letters  of  which  they  are  com¬ 
posed,  and  therefore  the  letters  must  have  a  meaning.  The  framers  of  language 
were  aware  of  this :  they  observed  that  a  was  adapted  to  express  size ;  77 
length;  0  roundness;  v  inwardness;  p  rush  or  roar;  X  liquidity;  7X  the  deten¬ 
tion  of  the  liquid  or  slippery  element;  S  and  r  binding;  <p,  \p,  a,  £,  wind  and 
cold,  and  so  on’  (426  C-427  D). 

‘Plato’s  analysis  of  the  letters  of  the  alphabet’,  says  Jowett1,  ‘shows  a 
wonderful  insight  into  the  nature  of  language’.  ‘In  passing  ft-om  the  gesture 
of  the  body  to  the  movement  of  the  tongue’,  he  “makes  a  great  step  in  the 
physiology  of  language.  He  was  probably  the  first  who  said  that  ‘language  is 
imitative  sound’,  which  is  the  greatest  and  deepest  truth  in  philology”.  But 
convention  has  its  influence  no  less  than  imitation.  ‘ Imitation ’,  says  Plato, 
‘is  a  poor  thing,  and  has  to  be  supplemented  by  convention,  which  is  another 
poor  thing;  although  I  quite  agree,  that  if  we  could  always  have  a  perfect 
correspondence  of  sound  and  meaning,  that  would  be  the  most  perfect  form  of 
language’  (435  C-d). 

Plato,  it  will  be  observed,  is  a  supporter  of  what  has  since  been  called  the 
onomatopoetic  theory  of  language.  ‘He  was  probably  also  the  first  who  made 
a  distinction  between  simple  and  compound  words...;  but  he  appears  to  have 
been  wholly  unaware  of  the  difference  between  a  root  and  a  termination’2. 
The  dialogue  may  have  been  in  part  ‘  a  satire  on  the  philological  fancies  of  the 
day’3;  the  author  may  have  been  ridiculing  ‘the  arbitrary  methods... which 
were  in  vogue  among  the  philologers  of  his  time’4,  but  this  is  uncertain. 

The  etymological  speculations  of  Plato  in  the  Cratylus  were  regarded  with 


1  Jowett’s  Plato ,  i  p.  64b1,  283 — 43. 

2  ib.  p.  6461,  284s. 

4  ib.  p.  6271,  262s. 


3  ib.  p.  6251,  2603. 


VII.] 


PLATO’S  CRATYLUS. 


95 


respect  by  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus  and  by  Plutarch,  but  they  are  now 
generally  treated  as  too  absurd  to  be  taken  seriously.  Schleiermacher  describes 
as  ‘a  valuable  discovery  of  modern  times’  the  view  that  Plato  meant  all  or 
most  of  his  etymologies  as  mere  parody  and  caricature.  This  view  is  accepted 
by  Stallbaum,  Brandis,  Zeller1  and  others;  but  is  opposed  by  Grote2,  who 
here  (as  elsewhere)  appears  to  take  an  unduly  literal  and  prosaic  view  of  the 
flights  of  fancy  and  the  play  of  humour  which  are  among  the  most  constant 
characteristics  of  Plato’s  manner.  But,  if  we  do  not  accept  Plato’s  etymo¬ 
logies  as  intended  to  be  taken  seriously,  it  does  not  necessarily  follow  that  he 
meant  them  as  mere  caricatures  of  the  etymological  speculations  of  his  day. 
‘The  position  which  he  takes  up  in  the  Cratylus  is’  (as  suggested  to  me  by 
Dr  Henry  Jackson)  ‘a  definite  one,  and  seriously  maintained.  He  holds  that, 
whereas  the  significance  of  names  is  determined  by  custom  and  convention, 
the  names  themselves  have  their  origin  in  attempts  to  represent  vocally  the 
things  signified  by  them.  For,  secondary  names  are  derived  from  primary 
names,  and  primary  names  are  constructed  out  of  rudimentary  sounds,  which, 
in  virtue  of  the  action  of  the  organs  used  in  producing  them,  are  naturally 
suitable  for  the  representation  of  certain  rudimentary  processes  and  states  : 
e.g.  the  letter  p ,  in  virtue  of  the  movement  of  the  tongue  in  producing  it, 
appropriately  represents  movement.  But,  to  all  appearance,  he  wishes  to 
suggest  (i)  that,  partly  because  from  the  beginning  there  was  in  names  an 
arbitrary  element,  partly  because  in  the  course  of  time  names  have  been 
corrupted  and  disguised,  their  origins  are  lost  in  obscurity;  and  (2)  that, 
inasmuch  as  names  could  at  best  represent  the  views  of  their  makers,  they 
cannot  be,  as  the  Heracleiteans  seem  to  have  thought  them,  guides  to  truth. 
It  would  appear  then  that  Plato  attaches  no  value  whatever  to  the  particular 
etymologies  offered;  and,  as  in  his  wilder  flights  he  ironically  appeals  to  the 
authority  of  Euthyphro  (396  d),  it  may  well  be  that  in  this  part  of  the  exposi¬ 
tion  there  is  a  satirical  element.  Moreover,  Plato’s  interest  in  the  general 
question  about  the  origin  of  language  is  subordinate  to  his  interest  in  the 
theory  of  ideal  unities,  which  at  the  end  of  the  dialogue  he  opposes  to  the 
dogma  of  Cratylus,  that  things  are  to  be  studied  in  their  names  ’. 

The  dialogue  has  been  discussed  by  Steinthal,  who  maintains  that  Plato 
begins  by  assuming  that  words  exist  as  a  product  of  nattire,  but  ends  by 
holding  that  they  exist  as  the  result  of  convention 3  This  view  is  confessedly 
opposed  to  the  scholiastic  tradition,  as  represented  by  Proclus,  who  makes 
Plato  a  supporter  of  the  natural  origin  of  language4;  but  the  views  maybe 
reconciled  by  regarding  Plato  as  holding  an  intermediate  position  between  the 
adherents  of  nature  and  convention.  It  has  also  been  discussed  by  many  others5, 

1  Plato ,  p.  213  n.  2  Plato ,  ii  519 — 529. 

3  Sprachwissenschaft ,  i2  107,  150. 

4  id.  168. 

5  e.g.  Dittrich  (Berlin)  1841  ;  Schaarschmidt,  Rheinisches  Museum,  xx 
321 — 356,  Alberti,  ib.  xxi  180 — 209,  xxii  477 — 499,  Lehrs,  ib.  xxii  436 — 440; 


96 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


best  perhaps  by  Deuschle1,  and  (from  the  comparative  philologist’s  point 
of  view)  by  Benfey2.  It  is  a  dialogue  of  enduring  interest  as  the  earliest 
attempt  at  a  philosophy  of  language,  but  language  is  here  (as  elsewhere)  in 
Plato’s  view  subordinate  in  importance  to  dialectic.  Its  general  teaching 
seems,  in  Zeller’s  opinion,  to  be  summed  up  in  the  conclusion  that  ‘  we  must 
give  up  seeking  in  words  a  knowledge  of  things’  (435  D-436  D,  438  c);  ‘we 
must  turn  our  attention  not  to  names,  but  to  the  things  themselves’  (439 a, 
440c),  and  ‘acknowledge  the  dialectician  to  be  superior  to  the  maker  of 
language’  (389  A-390 e)3.  Similarly,  it  has  been  shown  by  Mr  D.  D.  Heath 
in  the  Journal  of  Philology  (xvii  192-218)  that  Plato’s  sketch  of  the  theory  of 
nomenclature,  and  his  discussion  and  criticism  of  the  Heracleitean  school,  is 
entirely  ‘subordinate  to  the  clearly  expressed  conclusion’: — ‘A  scientific 
nomenclature  as  perfect  as  possible  might  suffice  for  teaching  the  truths  of 
nature.  But,  inasmuch  as  names  are  but  images,  and  therefore  necessarily 
imperfect  representations  of  things,  the  surest  way  is  the  study  of  the  things 
themselves;  and  therefore... a  knowledge  of  the  truth  of  things,  independently 
acquired,  is  a  necessary  preliminary  to  the  fomnation  of  such  an  approximately 
perfect  nomenclature ’  (p.  193).  On  the  question  how  far  Plato  is  serious  in  his 
etymologies  taken  in  detail  Mr  Heath  holds  that  ‘Plato  had  no  thought  of 
propounding  an  elaborate  history  and  analysis  of  the  Greek  language’,  and 
that  this  part  of  the  dialogue  may  be  compared  to  the  myths  in  other  dialogues, 
described  by  Grote  as  ‘fanciful  illustrations  invented  to  expand  and  enliven 
general  views’  (p.  201). 

The  controversy  as  to  the  origin  of  language  long  continued.  Aristotle 
rejected  the  opinion  that  words  existed  naturally,  and  held  that  their  meaning 
was  purely  conventional  {De  Interp.  c.  2  and  4) ;  Epicurus,  that  words  existed 
at  first  naturally,  and  afterwards  conventionally  (0&rei)4.  The  Megarian 
philosopher,  Diodorus,  took  the  side  of  convention,  and,  by  way  of  asserting 
his  right  to  invent  a  language  of  his  own,  himself  called  one  of  his  slaves  dXXd 
ixrjv,  and  gave  the  others  arbitrary  names  from  other  Greek  particles5.  The 
Stoics  on  the  other  hand  traced  the  origin  of  language  to  nature6;  and  the 
same  view  was  held  by  the  Roman  grammarian  Nigidius  Figulus  (d.  45  b.c.), 
as  we  learn  from  Aulus  Gellius  (x  4),  who  describes  the  question  as  one  which 
was  much  debated. 

Luckow  (Treptow)  1868 ;  Hay  duck  (Breslau)  and  Dreykorn  (Zweibriicken) 
1869 ;  also  by  Steinhart  in  his  Prolego7)iena ,  Susemihl  in  his  Genetische 
Entwickelung,  i  144 — 174,  and  Ch.  Lenormant  in  his  Commentaire  (Athens), 
1861. 

1  Die  Platonische  Sprachphilosophie  (Marburg),  1852,  pp.  83. 

2  Gottingen  Abhandlungen ,  xii  (1866),  189 — 330. 

3  Zeller’s  Plato,  p.  214. 

4  Diog.  Laert.  x  75  ;  Lucr.  v  1027  f. 

5  Ammonius  on  Arist.  de  Interp.  p.  103,  ap.  Lersch,  i  42. 

6  Origen,  contra  Celsum ,  i  24  (Lersch,  i  46). 


VII.] 


GRAMMAR  IN  ARISTOTLE. 


97 


Aristotle’s  treatise  on  Poetry  includes  an  analysis  of  the  parts 
of  speech  and  other  grammatical  details  (c.  20),  and 
a  passage  on  the  gender  of  nouns  (c.  21).  Probably 
both  of  these  passages  are  interpolations.  In  the  former  a  ‘letter’ 
is  defined,  and  letters  divided  into  vowels,  semivowels  and  mutes 
((fHovycvTOL,  7]fXL<f>o}va  and  acfxDva);  a  noun,  a  verb,  and  a  ‘connecting 
word  ’  (o-wSeoT-tos)  are  also  defined ;  and  ‘  inflexion  ’  (tttwo-is)  is 
described  as  belonging  to  the  noun  and  the  verb,  and  expressing 
‘  of  ’,  ‘  to  ’,  or  the  like,  or  the  relation  of  number,  or  that  of  ‘  mode 
of  address’1.  In  the  De  Jnterpretatione  the  verb  in  the  present 
tense  is  the  prjp.a,  and  the  other  tenses  are  its  7nweis,  and  else¬ 
where  the  7n7weis  of  a  noun  include  even  adjectives  and  adverbs. 
In  contrast  with  m-wcns,  the  nominative  is  called  kA.^<xis2.  Various 
cases  are  distinguished  by  Aristotle,  but  their  number  and  their 
names  are  still  undetermined3.  In  addition  to  ‘Active  and 
Passive  ’  Verbs,  those  subsequently  known  as  ‘  Neuter  ’  and 
‘Deponent’  are  now  recognised  for  the  first  time4.  The  symbol 
of  the  rough  breathing  distinguishing  0P02  ‘boundary’  from  0P02 
‘mountain’  is  called  by  Aristotle  (Soph.  El.  177  b  3)  a  Trapdo-rjfjLov, 
the  former  word  being  probably  written  as  h0P02.  The  writings  of 
Heracleitus  are  described  (Rhet.  iii  5)  as  hard  to  punctuate  (Sia- 
<m£a<),  but  the  only  mark  of  punctuation  actually  mentioned  by 
Aristotle  is  the  Trapaypacfjy  (ib.  8),  a  short  horizontal  dash  drawn 
below  the  first  word  of  the  line  in  which  the  sentence  is  about  to 
end.  It  is  from  this  ancient  symbol,  which  marks  the  close  of 
the  sentence,  that  we  give  to  the  sentence  itself,  or  to  a  connected 
group  of  sentences,  the  name  of  a  ‘paragraph’. 

The  only  parts  of  speech  that  Aristotle  recognises  in  the  first 
chapter  of  the  Categories  are  ovopca  and  prjfxa ,  the  Noun  and  the 
Verb.  In  the  Rhetoric  (iii  5  and  12)  and  the  Problems  (xix  20)  he 
makes  incidental  mention  of  awSeo-pan,  a  term  including  conjunc¬ 
tions,  connecting  particles  and  even  connecting  clauses.  In  the 
Poetic  (c.  20)  he  is  also  made  to  mention  dpOpa  (Pronouns  and 
Articles),  but  we  are  assured  by  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus  (De 
Comp.  c.  2)  that  only  three  parts  of  speech  were  recognised  by 

1  Classen,  /.  c.  52 — 58  ;  Steinthal,  l.  c.  i2  253 — 9. 

2  Steinthal,  i2  266  f.  3  Classen,  64  f. 

4  Schwalbe’s  Beitrcig  (1838),  p.  92. 


S. 


7 


98 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Aristotle,  and,  for  this  and  other  reasons,  the  chapter  in  question 
is  best  regarded  as  an  interpolation. 

In  the  controversy  as  to  the  origin  of  language  Aristotle,  as 
already  observed  (p.  96),  is  an  adherent  of  ‘  convention  ’  and  not 
of  ‘nature’.  The  terms  constituting  a  Proposition  are  declared 
by  Aristotle  to  be  a  Noun  in  the  nominative  case  as  Subject,  and 
a  Verb  as  Predicate1;  and  the  Verb  is  distinguished  from  the 
Noun  as  connoting  time  (16  b  2).  While  Plato  {Soph.  261  f) 
regards  the  Proposition  as  composed  of  the  oro/x a  and  the  pfjp a 
(having  no  other  terms  than  these  for  Subject  and  Predicate),  and 
expresses  affirmation  by  <£acm  and  negation  by  a7ro<£ao-i9,  Aristotle 
has  a  technical  term  not  only  for  affirmation  (/cara^ao-is)  and 
negation  (d7rd<£curis)  and  for  negative  Noun  and  Verb,  but  also 
for  Subject  (to  v'n-oKdp.evov)  and  for  Predicate  (to  KaTrjyopovixevov)2 . 
‘  Subject  ’  is  in  fact  the  modern  form  of  subjectum ,  the  late  Latin 
rendering  in  Martianus  Capella  (iv  361)  of  the  term  first  found  in 
Aristotle. 


The  Peripa 
tetic  School 


The  further  development  of  the  terminology  of  Grammar  was 
reserved  for  the  Stoics  of  the  third  and  following 
centuries  b.c.3  Meanwhile,  the  Peripatetic  School 
carried  on  the  Aristotelian  tradition  by  the  special 
study  of  the  history  and  the  criticism  of  Literature.  Our  survey 

of  the  Athenian  age  may  here  conclude  with  a  brief  mention  of  a 

* 

few  of  the  members  of  that  School. 

Heracleides  Ponticus  of  Sinope  {fl.  340  b.c.)  had  been  a  pupil 
of  Plato  before  he  became  a  pupil  of  Aristotle. 
While  his  philosophical  works  were  soon  forgotten, 
his  grammatical  and  literary  writings  long  survived. 
He  wrote  on  Rhetoric  and  Music,  and  also  on  Poetry  and  Poets, 
on  Homeric  problems,  on  the  age  of  Homer  and  Hesiod,  on 
Homer  and  Archilochus,  and  on  Sophocles  and  Euripides.  One 
of  his  works,  entitled  ypap.p.aTLKa,  may  have  touched  on  questions 
of  literary  criticism.  The  excerpts  £k  t<Zv  'Hpa/cA-ctSov  irepl 
7to\lt€lwv  are  portions  of  an  abridgement  of  the  voXiTeLai  of 
Aristotle,  now  ascribed  to  Heracleides  Lembos ,  an  Alexandrian 


Heracleides 

Ponticus 


1  Grote’s  Aristotle ,  i  156. 

2  ib.  194  f;  cp.  Steinthal,  i2  183  f,  235  f.  3  p.  144  f. 


VII.] 


THE  PERIPATETIC  SCHOOL. 


99 


Chamaeleon 


Aristoxenus 


Theophrastus 


‘grammarian’  who  lived  under  Ptolemy  Philometor  (182-146  b.c.)1. 
A  fellow-countryman  and  a  rival  of  Heracleides  Ponticus,  named 
Chamaeleon,  wrote  on  Homer,  Hesiod,  Stesichorus, 

Sappho,  Anacreon,  Lasus,  Pindar,  Simonides, 

Thespis  and  Aeschylus ;  also  on  the  early  history  of  Tragedy 
and  on  Ancient  Comedy  (Athen.  406  e)2.  The  Peripatetic 
School  included  Aristoxenus  of  Tarentum,  the 
leading  authority  in  the  ancient  world  on  Rhythm 
and  Music  ( fl .  318  b.c.),  who  wrote  on  the  History  of  Music,  and 
on  Tragic  dancing  and  Tragic  poets,  besides  biographies  of 
Pythagoras,  Archytas,  Socrates  and  Plato3. 

The  critical  study  of  prose  style  was  continued  by  Aristotle’s 
successor,  Theophrastus  of  Eresos  in  Lesbos  (372- 
287).  Among  the  ten  works  on  rhetoric  ascribed  to 
him  by  Diogenes  Laertius  (v  46-50)  was  a  treatise  On  Style  (nepl 
Ac^ctus),  still  extant  in  the  time  of  Cicero.  He  is  expressly  named 
in  Cicero’s  Orator  in  connexion  with  the  style  of  Herodotus  and 
Thucydides  (§  39),  the  four  points  of  excellence  in  style  (79),  the 
rhythm  of  prose  (172,  228),  and  the  use  of  the  paean  (194,  218); 
while  several  passages  may  probably  be  traced  to  him,  e.g.  that  on 
delivery  and  its  effect  on  the  emotions  (55),  on  beauty  of  diction 
(80)  and  on  moderation  in  the  use  of  metaphor  (81).  To  Theo¬ 
phrastus  we  also  owe  the  division  of  style  into  the  ‘grand’,  the 
‘plain’,  and  the  ‘mixed’  or  ‘intermediate’,  adopted  by  Cicero  in 
§§  20,  21.  In  the  Augustan  age  his  treatise  on  style  is  either 
expressly  quoted  or  otherwise  noticed  in  several  passages  of 
Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus4,  and  is  possibly  the  source  of  other 
passages  where  his  name  is  not  mentioned5.  Theophrastus  also 


1  Grafenhan,  /.  c.  i  63  f,  360 ;  Classen,  l.  c.  p.  8 ;  Muller,  F.  H.  G.  ii 
197 — 207;  Christ,  Gr.  Litt.  §  4203;  also  Unger,  Rhein.  Mus.  xxxviii  481  ff; 
Cohn,  Breslau,  1884;  Schrader,  Philol.  xliv  236  ff;  Holzinger,  Philol.  liv,  lvi ; 
Voss,  Rostock,  1897;  Susemihl,  Lit.  Alex,  i  501-5. 

2  Christ,  §  4203 ;  Kopke,  Berlin,  1856. 

3  Muller,  ii  262 — 292;  Christ,  §  422s;  Hiibner,  Bibliographies  p.  12. 

4  De  Comp.  16,  De  Lysia  14,  De  Dem.  3,  De  Isocr.  5  ;  cp.  Theophr. 

Fragm.  iii  93 — 96  Wimmer,  and  the  present  writer’s  ed.  of  Cic.  Orator ,  p.  lxx 
and  note  on  §  79  ;  also  Rabe,  De  Theophr.  irepl  (Bonn),  1890. 

5  Usener  (D.  H.  de  Imitatione ,  1889,  p.  141)  says  of  Dionysius:  ‘  normas 
elocutionis  aestimandae  Theophrasto  plerumque  debet  ’. 


7—2 


100 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


wrote  a  work  on  Comedy  (Athen.  261  d).  He  and  his  school 
appear  to  have  discussed  the  question  whether  by  parts  of  speech 
ovofxa  and  pr)juLa  alone  were  meant,  or  whether  they  also  included 
apOpa  and  crvvSecrpiOL \ 

Among  the  younger  pupils  of  Aristotle  was  Dicaearchus  of 

Messana  (347-287  b.c.),  the  author  of  an  important 

1^1  C  S  0  ^  X*  C  ll  U  S  #  ^  ^ 

work  entitled  /3los  rrjs  EAAdSos.  It  was  the  first 
attempt  at  a  history  of  civilisation,  tracing  the  ‘  Life  of  Greece 5 
from  the  dawn  of  history  to  the  age  of  Alexander.  It  included  an 
account  of  the  geography  and  history,  as  well  as  the  moral  and 
religious  condition  of  the  country,  besides  embracing  music  and 
poetry  in  its  extensive  range.  Treatises  on  Constitutions,  such  as 
those  of  Pellene,  Corinth  and  Athens,  mentioned  by  Cicero  (ad 
Att.  ii  2),  may  have  either  formed  part  of  this  work  or  served  as 
materials  for  it;  while  that  on  ‘musical  competitions’  may  have 
belonged  to  a  larger  treatise  on  ‘  Dionysiac  contests  ’.  His  name 
is  assigned  to  certain  Arguments  to  the  plays  of  Sophocles  and 
Euripides ;  and  those  on  the  Alcestis  and  Medea  are  still  extant. 
He  also  wrote  biographies  of  the  Seven  Wise  Men,  and  of 
Pythagoras  and  Plato,  besides  treating  of  the  leading  poets  in  the 
course  of  his  great  work  on  Greece.  He  did  much  for  the  study 
•of  Greek  geography,  and  his  maps  were  known  to  Cicero  (ad  Att. 
vi  2) ;  but  he  was  much  more  than  a  mere  student.  He  measured 
the  altitudes  of  the  mountains  of  the  Peloponnesus,  and  he 
appeared  as  a  public  speaker  at  the  Panathenaic  festival  at 
Athens,  and  at  the  Panhellenic  festival  at  Olympia2. 

A  pupil  of  Theophrastus,  Praxiphanes  of  Rhodes  or  Mytilene 
.  .  (fl-  3°°  b.c.),  was  one  of  the  first  to  pay  special 

Jt  rcixipri ail c  s  # 

attention  to  ‘grammatical’  studies  in  the  literary 
sense  of  the  term  (p.  7).  His  interests  included  history,  poetry, 
rhetoric,  and  the  criticism  and  interpretation  of  literature.  He 
was  the  first  to  suggest  the  spuriousness  of  the  beginning  of  the 
ordinary  text  of  Hesiod’s  Works  and  Days  on  the  ground  of  its 
omission  in  the  earlier  mss  ;  and  he  also  criticised  the  opening 
words  of  Plato’s  Timaeus.  His  work  on  poetry  was  in  the  form 
of  a  dialogue  between  Plato  and  Isocrates ;  and,  probably  be- 

1  Simplicius  on  Arist.  Categ.  fol.  8,  ed.  Ven. 

2  Muller,  F.  H.  G.  ii  225 — 253  ;  Christ,  §  4213;  Hiibner,  p.  13. 


VII.] 


DEMETRIUS  OF  PHALERON. 


IOI 


tween  291  and  287  b.c.,  he  counted  among  his  pupils  Aratus  and 
Callimachus1. 

All  the  members  of  the  Peripatetic  School,  whose  names  have 
hitherto  been  mentioned,  belonged  by  birth  to  other  lands  than 
Attica.  They  had  come  from  Italy  and  Sicily,  from  the  shores  of 
the  Euxine  and  from  the  islands  across  the  Aegean,  to  find  a 
philosophic  training  of  the  most  varied  kind  in  the  city  which  was 
the  school  not  of  Greece  alone  but  also  of  the  Greek  world  in  its 
widest  sense.  We  now  turn  in  conclusion  to  the  name  of  one 
who,  although  he  was  the  son  of  a  freedman  only,  was  neverthe¬ 
less  of  Attic  birth,  and  rose  to  the  highest  political  position  in 
Athens,  and  even  in  his  fall  was  a  most  appropriate  intermediary 
for  the  transmission  of  the  learning  of  Athens  to  the  new  city, 
which  Alexander,  the  victorious  advancer  of  Greek  civilisation  in 
the  distant  East,  had  founded  early  in  330  b.c.  on  the  western 
verge  of  the  Delta  of  the  Nile. 

Demetrius  of  Phaleron,  who  was  born  about  354-348  b.c.  and 
died  after  283,  was  a  pupil  of  Theophrastus,  and 
began  his  public  career  about  324.  For  a  period  of  ph^Son1US  °f 
ten  years  (317-307)  he  ruled  with  distinction  at 
Athens  as  Regent  for  Cassander.  As  an  incident  of  literary 
interest,  it  may  be  mentioned  that  he  was  the  first  to  introduce 
recitations  by  rhapsodists  into  the  theatre  of  Athens  (Athen. 
620  b).  After  his  fall  in  307  he  fled  to  Thebes,  and,  ten  years 
later,  in  297,  left  for  Egypt,  where  he  attained  great  influence  at 
the  court  of  Ptolemy  I,  and  gave  the  first  impulse  towards  the 
founding  of  the  Alexandrian  Library.  Having  urged  Ptolemy  I 
not  to  appoint  Ptolemy  Philadelphus  as  his  successor,  Demetrius 
was  naturally  banished  from  Alexandria  when  Philadelphus  be¬ 
came  sole  ruler  in  283.  Besides  his  numerous  political  and 
oratorical  works,  he  wrote  on  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey ,  collected 
the  Fables  of  Aesop,  and  drew  up  a  chronological  list  of  the 
Archons  of  Athens.  In  his  treatise  on  Rhetoric  he  told  the  story 
he  had  heard  from  Demosthenes  himself,  on  the  way  in  which 
the  orator  had  in  his  youth  corrected  the  defects  of  an  indistinct 

1  Susemihl,  i  144  f;  cp.  Preller,  De  Praxiphane  (1842)  in  Ausgnvcihlte 
Aufsdtze  (1864);  also  articles  in  Hermes  xii  326  f  (Wilamowitz),  xiii  46  f 
(Hirzel)  and  446  f  (Scholl). 


102 


THE  ATHENIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP.  VII. 


delivery  (Plut.  Dem.  c.  n);  the  work  also  included  details  as  to 
the  birth  of  Isaeus  and  the  death  of  Isocrates,  and  as  to  the 
masterly  manner  in  which  the  architect  Philon  described  the 
construction  of  his  naval  armoury  in  the  presence  of  the  people 
(Cic.  de  Or.  i  62).  The  treatise  7repi  ep/x^j/cta?  which  bears  his 
name  belongs  to  a  later  age.  His  public  speeches  are  only 
represented  by  inadequate  fragments ;  we  have  therefore  to  rely 
mainly  on  Cicero  for  our  knowledge  of  his  oratorical  charac¬ 
teristics.  He  is  described  as  the  leading  representative  of  the 
1  intermediate  ’  style,  which  combines  the  minimum  of  force  with 
the  maximum  of  charm ;  his  diction  was  marked  by  a  placid 
smoothness,  and  ‘  lit  up  by  the  stars  of  metaphor  and  metonymy  ’ 
{Orator  §§  91  f.).  More  florid  than  Lysias  and  Hypereides 
{Brutus  285),  he  marks  the  beginning  of  the  decline  in  Attic 
eloquence  which  followed  the  death  of  Demosthenes1.  In  the 
history  of  Scholarship  he  marks  the  close  of  the  Athenian  and  the 
beginning  of  the  Alexandrian  age,  serving  as  a  link  between  the 
first  capital  of  Greek  culture  and  the  second,  in  so  far  as,  after 
holding  a  prominent  position  in  the  oratorical  and  political  world 
of  Athens,  he  prompted  the  founding  of  the  famous  Library  of 
Alexandria. 

1  Introd.  to  Cic.  Oi'ator ,  p.  xxxiii.  Cp.  Christ,  §  424?',  Susemihl,  i  135 — 
144. 


Alexander  the  Great. 

Silver  tetradrachm  of  Lysimachus,  king  of  Thrace. 
(From  the  British  Museum.) 


BOOK  II 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  AGE 


7ToXXol  fLkv  /36(rKOVTCU  €V  AlyV7TTlp  7ToXvcf)vXlp 
/3l/3XiclkoI  xapaKLTai  arreLpira  &r)pio(DVT€' ; 

MowrcW  iv  raXapw. 

Timon  of  Phlius,  ap.  Athen.  22  d. 


In  the  thronging  land  of  Egypt , 

There  are  many  that  are  feeding, 

Many  scribblers  on  papyrus 
Ever  ceaselessly  conte?iding ; 

In  the  bird-coop  of  the  Muses. 

On  the  Alexandrian  Museum,  c.  230  b.c. 


Conspectus  of  Greek  Literature  &c.,  c.  300 — 1  B.C. 


Riders  of 
Egypt 


330  foundation 
of  Alexandria 
323  d.  of  Alex¬ 
ander 
Ptolemy  I 
{So  ter) 

322  satrap 
305  king 
285  Ptolemy  II 
{Philadelphus) 
270  d.  of  Arsi- 
noe  II 


247  Ptolemy  III 
{Euergetes  I) 


238  decree  of 
Canopus 


222  Ptolemy  IV 
{Philopator) 
205  Ptolemy  V 
{Epiphanes) 


200- 


196  Rosetta 
stone 

182  Ptolemy  VI 
{Eupator) 

182  Ptolemy  VII 
{Philometor) 

146  VIII  {Philo- 
pat  or  Neos) 

146  IX  {Euer- 
getes  II,  or 
Physcon) 

1 17  Cleopatra 
III  and  her 
sons  X  {Philo¬ 
metor  Soter 
11,  or  Lathy- 
rus)  and  XI 
{A  lexander) 

100 - 

81  Ptolemy  XII 
(A  lexander  II) 

81  Ptolemy  XIII 
{A  uletes) 

51  Cleopatra  VI 
and  Ptol.  XIV, 
(47)  Ptol.  XV, 
and  (45)  Cae- 
sarion 

30  Egypt  be¬ 
comes  a  Ro¬ 
man  province 


Rulers  of 
Pergamon,  &c 


283  Philetaerus 

278  Antigonus 
Gonatas  king 
of  Macedonia, 
d.  239 

263  Eumenes  I 


241  Attalus  I 


222  Antiochus 
the  Great,  king 
of  Syria,  d.  187 


197  Eumenes  II 


159  Attalus  II 


138  Attalus  III 
133  d.  of  Attalus, 
who  makes 
Rome  his  heir 


Poets 


floruit 
300  Philetas  • 
c.  340—  c.  285-3 
290  Hermesia- 
nax 

285  Alexander 
Aetolus 
b.  c.  315 
285  Lycophron 

b.  c.  330-325 
276  Aratus 

276  Timon  of 
Phlius 

c.  315 — c.  226 
272  Theocritus 

b.  c.  324 
Leonidas  of  Ta- 

rentum 

263  Callimachus 

c.  310— c.  235 
250  Apollonius 

Rhodius 
b.  c.  283 
250  Rhianus 
c.  250  Herondas 

220  Euphorion 
b.  c.  276 


150?  Moschus 
150  Nicander 

Antipater  of 
Sidon 


100?  Bion 
80  ?  Bionis  epi - 
taphius 


60  Meleager 


12  Antipater  of 
Thessalonica 


Scholars  and 
Critics,  &c. 


285  Zenodotus 
c.  325— c.  234 


234  Eratosthenes 
c.  276 — 196-4 


200  Hermippus 


195  Aristophanes 
of  Byzantium 
c.  257 — c.  180 


180  Aristarchus 
c.  217-5 — 145-3 
168  Crates  of 
Mallos 


c.  145  Ammonius 
c.  130  Dionysius 
Thrax 


Ptolemy  of  As- 
calon 

Philoxenus 
45  Apollodorus 
(rhetor)  of  Per¬ 
gamon,  105-23 

30  Didymus 
c.  65  b.c. — 10  A.  D. 
Aristonicus 
Tryphon 
30 — 8  Dionysius 
of  Halicarnas¬ 
sus 

Caecilius 
25  Juba 
d.  20  A.D. 
Apollonius 


Chronologers, 
Historians  &c. 


295  Sosibius 
c.  280  Craterus 
280  Berosus 

277  Manetho 

272  Hieronymus 
of  Cardia 
264  M armor 
Parium 


240  Antigonus 
of  Carystos 
295-0 — c.  220 


197  Neanthes 
191  Heracleides 
c.  185  Polemon 
of  Ilium 


170  Demetrius 
of  Scepsis 

b.  c.  214 
170  Polybius 

c.  205 — c.  123 
144  Apollodorus 


of 


70  Castor 
Rhodes 
60  Diodorus 
{c.  90 —c.  30) 
visits  Egypt 


24  Strabo  {c.  63 
b.c. — c.  24  A.D.) 
visits  Egypt 


Philosophers 


322  Theophras¬ 
tus/ 

320  Pyrrhon 
c.  360 — 270 
317-07  Deme¬ 
trius  of  Phale- 
ron  / 

314  Polemon  a 
308  Zeno -s' 
c .  350 — 260 
306  Epicurus 
341—270 
304  Crantor® 

300  Praxi- 
phanes/ 

287  Straton/ 
276-0  Crates a 
270  Arcesilas  a 
c.  315—241 
264  Cleanthes 
331—232 
241  Lacydes*1 
232  Chrysippus  J 
c.  280 — c.  208-4 


176  Aristobulus/ 
155  Carneades® 
c.  219 — 129 
140  Panaetius-r 
c.  18 1 — c.  109 
121  Cleitoma- 
chus" 

c.  175—  c.  105 

105  Philo  of 
Larissa  a 
c.  147 — 80 


80  Antiochus  a 
d.  68 

80  Poseidonius-5- 
c.  135— c.  45 

60  Andronicus/ 
55  Philodemus 


Q.  Sextius 
b.  c.  70 

Philo  Judaeus 
b.  20  b.  c.  d. 
after  40  a.d. 


a  Academics ,  P  Peripatetics ,  s  Stoics , 


CHAPTER  VIII. 


THE  SCHOOL  OF  ALEXANDRIA. 


Greek  Scholarship  was  fostered  in  Alexandria  under  the  rule 
of  the  earlier  Ptolemies.  It  was  during  the  reign  of  Ptolemy 
Soter,  who  had  been  satrap  of  Egypt  from  322  to  305  b.c.,  and 
was  king  from  305  to  285,  that  Demetrius  of  Phaleron  gave  the 
first  impulse  towards  the  founding  of  public  libraries  in  the 
Egyptian  capital  (c.  295  b.c.)1.  Ptolemy  Soter,  who  had  in  vain 
invited  Theophrastus  and  Menander  to  settle  in  Alexandria, 
entrusted  the  education  of  his  son  and  successor  Ptolemy 
Philadelphus  (285-247)  to  the  poet  and  scholar,  Philetas  of  Cos, 
and  to  the  philosopher,  Straton,  the  successor  of  Theophrastus. 
Early  in  the  Alexandrian  age  literary  institutions  of  the  highest 
importance  were  founded  in  Alexandria.  The  foundation  of  the 
Great  Library  in  particular  was  probably  due  in  the  first  instance 
to  Ptolemy  Soter,  acting  under  the  advice  of  Demetrius2,  but  the 
credit  is  often  assigned  to  Philadelphus,  who  may  have  continued 
and  completed  his  father’s  designs3,  though  he  was  himself  mainly 
interested  in  zoology4.  Philadelphus5  is  also  credited  with  the 
foundation  of  the  splendid  shrine  of  learning  known 

1  0  The  Museum 

as  the  Movo-ctov,  ‘the  temple,  or  home,  of  the 

Muses  ’,  which  is  described  by  Strabo,  who  visited  Alexandria  in 

24  b.c.,  as  forming  part  of  the  royal  quarter  of  the  city,  and  as 

1  Susemihl,  Geschichte  der  Griechischen  Litteratur  in  der  Alexandrinerzeit 

(1891),  i  6,  138. 

2  Wilamowitz,  Antigonos  von  Karystos,  p.  291,  and  Kuiper  (Utrecht)  1894 
(Mahaffy’s  Empire  of  the  Ptolemies ,  1895,  p.  92). 

3  Susemihl,  i  6 — 7. 

4  Diodorus,  iii  36,  3  f  (Mahaffy,  /.  c .,  p.  128  f). 

5  Atheii.  203  c,  E. 


io  6 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


including  a  covered  walk,  an  arcade  furnished  with  recesses  and 
seats,  and  a  large  building  containing  a  common  hall,  in  which 
the  Scholars  who  were  members  of  the  Museum  met  for  their 
meals.  This  learned  body  had  endowments ;  and  its  president, 
nominated  by  the  government,  was  called  ‘the  priest  of  the 
Museum’1.  The  provision  for  the  maintenance  of  these  Scholars 
was  apparently  on  so  liberal  a  scale  that  a  satirical  poet  of  that 
age,  Timon  of  Phlius  (writing  about  230  b.c.),  humorously  called 
it  a  ‘bird-coop  of  the  Muses’2.  It  is  among  the  attractions  of 
Alexandria  mentioned  by  Herondas  (i  31),  immediately  after  the 
Oe (Zv  a&tXcjxZv  t€/jl€vo<s,  the  precinct  of  the  temple  of  Philadelphus 
and  his  sister  and  wife,  Arsinoe  II,  who  (as  we  now  know)3  died 
in  270  b.c.4  It  had  some  points  of  contact  with  the  Academy  and 
the  Lyceum.  The  name  recalls  the  Platonic  brotherhood,  or  tkiasos , 
with  its  common  cult  of  the  Muses  in  the  ‘groves  of  Academe’, 
as  well  as  the  ‘  Museum  ’  mentioned  in  the  will  of  Theophrastus5; 
while  its  covered  walk,  or  peripatos ,  is  no  less  suggestive  of  still 
earlier  memories  of  the  Peripatetic  School.  But  we  may  realise 
its  character  still  better  by  regarding  it  as  a  kind  of  prototype  of  a 
College  at  Oxford  or  Cambridge,  with  its  common  hall  for  dining 
and  its  cloisters  and  grounds,  and  with  some  provision  for  the 
endowment  of  research.  The  members  of  the  Museum  probably 
received  annual  stipends ;  but  whether  the  Library,  as  in  an 
English  College,  was  part  of  the  buildings  of  the  Museum,  is 
unknown,  though  it  was  probably  very  near  them.  We  are  also 
unaware  whether  there  were  any  arrangements  for  instruction. 
Even  500  years  after  its  foundation  it  is  eulogised  by  Philostratus 
as  a  society  of  celebrities6;  in  the  following  century  the  quarter  of 

1  P*  793  f>  T^v  j3a<n\dwu  /iepos  earl  kclI  rb  M ovaeiov,  %xov  7r e pin ar ov 
/ecu  c^ldpav  nal  oIkov  p.£yav,  ev  <p  rb  avaaLnov  tu>v  pLeTexovnov  tov  Movcrelov 
<pi\o\6yuu  avdpQv  ktA. 

2  Quoted  on  p.  103. 

3  Mahafify’s  Ptolemaic  Dynasty,  p.  79. 

4  For  portraits  of  Ptolemy  Soter  (and  Berenike  I)  and  also  of  Ptolemy 
Philadelphus  and  Arsinoe  II,  see  coin  inscribed  OELIN  AAEA^LIN 
on  p.  143. 

5  Diog.  Laert.  v  51. 

6  Vit.  Soph,  i  22,  5,  Tpairefa  AlyviTrLa  %vyKa\ovcra  tov s  £v  iracry  rrj  yrj 
£\Aoylp.ov$. 


VIII.]  THE  MUSEUM  AND  LIBRARIES  OF  ALEXANDRIA.  107 


the  city  where  it  lay  is  described  by  Ammianus  Marcellinus  as 
‘having  long  been  the  home  of  eminent  men’1,  while  the  last  who 
is  actually  named  as  a  member  of  the  Museum  is  the  celebrated 
mathematician  and  neo-platonist  Theon  (fl.  380  a.d.),  the  father 
pf  the  noble-hearted  and  ill-fated  Hypatia  (d.  415  a.d.).  It  is  in 
connexion  with  the  pathetic  story  of  her  life  that  the  old  associa¬ 
tions  of  this  memorable  haunt  of  Alexandrian  scholars  and  poets 
have  been  happily  characterised  by  Kingsley : — ‘  School  after 
school,  they  had  all  walked  and  taught  and  sung  there,  beneath 
the  spreading  planes  and  chestnuts,  figs  and  palm  trees.  The 
place  seemed  fragrant  with  all  the  riches  of  Greek  thought  and 
song  ’ 2. 

The  other  literary  institutions  of  the  earlier  Ptolemies  were  the 
two  Libraries.  The  larger  of  these  is  stated  to  have 

.  0  The  Library 

been  in  the  Brucheion ,  the  N.E.  quarter  of  Alex¬ 
andria,  and  was  probably  very  close  to  the  Museum3.  It  has 
however  been  conjecturally  placed  in  the  western  half  of  the  city, 
S.E.  of  the  Heptastadion,  about  400  yards  from  the  Great 
Harbour,  and  to  the  north  of  the  main  street,  which  was  lined 
with  shady  colonnades4  and  extended  for  nearly  four  miles  from 
the  N.E.  to  the  S.W.  of  Alexandria5.  ‘There  it  towered  up,  the 
wonder  of  the  world,  its  white  roof  bright  against  the  rainless 
blue ;  and  beyond  it,  among  the  ridges  and  pediments  of  noble 
buildings,  a  broad  glimpse  of  the  bright  sea  ’.2 

The  smaller  Library,  sometimes  called  the  ‘  daughter-library  ’, 
was  in  the  Rhakotis ,  the  S.W.  quarter,  near  the  temple  of  Serapis 

1  xxii  16,  diuturnum  praestantium  hominum  domicilium.  The  Museum 
and  the  Libraries  of  Alexandria  have  been  the  theme  of  several  monographs, 
by  Parthey  and  by  lvlippel,  1838,  and  by  Goll  1868,  Weniger  1875,  and  Couat 
1879;  they  have  also  been  discussed  by  Clinton,  Fasti,  iii  380  f ;  Ritschl, 
Opuscula ,  i  (first  published  in  1838);  Bernhardy,  Gr.  Lift,  i  527 — 5424  ; 
Susemihl,  /.  c. ;  Holm,  Gr.  Hist,  iv,  c.  14;  Mahaffy’s  Empire  of  the  Ptolemies , 
91 — 99  ;  and  Dziatzko  in  Pauly- Wissovva,  s.v.  Bibliotheken,  409 — 414. 

2  Hypatia,  c.  2.  3  Susemihl,  i  336. 

4  Aristides,  ii  450  Dind.,  ev  rtp  /xeyaXip  dpopLcp  rep  Kara  ras  aroas. 

5  Cp.  Dziatzko,  in  Pauly- Wissowa,  s.v.  Bibliotheken,  p.  412.  Similarly 
Botti’s  map  of  1898,  reproduced  in  Mahaffy’s  Egypt  tinder  the  Ptolemaic 
Dynasty,  puts  the  Museum  in  the  middle  of  the  Neapolis,  and  south  of  the 
Emporium,  with  the  Public  Gardens  between  the  Museum  and  the  main 
street ;  but  this  seems  too  far  west  from  the  Brucheion  and  the  Royal  Palace, 


io8 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


and  ‘  Pompey’s  Pillar  and  not  far  from  the  Mareotic  lake, 
which  extends  behind  the  spit  of  land  on  which 
fTjje  Library  Alexandria  was  built.  It  is  this  Library  which  is 
Serapeum  doubtless  intended  by  the  rhetorician  Aphthonius 
(end  of  cent,  iv),  when  he  mentions  it  in  the  course 
of  his  glowing  description  of  the  ‘  acropolis  ’  of  Alexandria.  The 
description  has  a  twofold  interest,  firstly,  because  it  appears  to 
imply  that,  by  the  time  when  it  was  written,  an  ‘acropolis’  had 
been  formed  on  the  rising  ground  surrounding  the  Serapeum 1 ; 
and  secondly,  because  the  library  is  stated  to  have  been  closely 
connected  with  a  temple  and  with  certain  colonnades,  and  both 
of  these  are  among  the  characteristics  of  ancient  libraries 2. 

The  completion  of  the  Library  of  the  Serapeum ,  like  that  of 
the  Great  Library  of  the  Brucheion,  may  be  ascribed  to  Ptolemy 
Philadelphus.  It  was  also  Philadelphus  who,  according  to  the 
‘Letter  of  Aristeas’,  quoted  by  Josephus  (Ant.  Jud.  xii  2),  caused 
the  Law  of  Moses  to  be  translated  into  Greek  by  a  commission  of 
learned  Jewish  elders,  thus  beginning  the  version  known  as  the 
Septuagint,  probably  projected  in  the  reign  of  Ptolemy  Soter3. 
To  the  reign  of  Philadelphus,  and  to  about  the  year  255  b.c., 
belongs  the  settlement  of  a  Greek  colony  in  the  newly  reclaimed 
and  greatly  enlarged  oasis  of  Lake  Moeris,  now  known  as  the 
Faiyfim.  The  Hellenic  culture  of  that  district  is  attested  by  the 
numerous  papyri  there  discovered  by  Mr  Flinders  Petrie  in  1889- 
90,  including  portions  of  the  Phaedo  and  Laches  of  Plato,  and  of 
the  Antiope  of  Euripides,  ascribed  to  the  3rd  century  b.c.4 

It  may  here  be  observed  that  Zoilus  of  Amphipolis,  whose 
name  is  proverbial  for  the  bitterness  of  his  criticisms  on  Homer, 
is  wrongly  assigned  to  the  age  of  Philadelphus,  who  is  described 
in  Vitruvius  (Praef.  vii)  as  having  listened  to  his  criticisms  with 

1  Cp.  Clem.  Alex.  Protrcp.  p.  14  Sylburg. 

2  Aphthonius,  Progymnasmata ,  c.  12  (i  107  Walz),  tt apcpKobof-LrivTcu  bt 

ar)Kol  t&v  ctouiv  'ivboOev,  oi  p.kv  ra/nLai  yeyevrjpievoi  rots  /3ij8\ots,  rots  (pCKoirovov<nv 
aveipypitvoi  (pikocrocpe'iv,  Kal  airacrav  eis  i%ovcrlav  rrjs  crcxpias  iiraipovres,  oi  b£ 

robs  iraXac  Tt/j.av  ibpvfj.tvoL  deotis. 

3  Susemihl,  i  6  (note)  and  Swete’s  Introduction  to  the  Greek  Old  Testament , 
pp.  9 — 28,  520. 

4  Mahaffy’s  Empire  of  the  Ptolemies,  pp.  156,  180;  Kenyon,  Palaeography 
of  Greek  papyri,  p.  6  f.  Cp.  Facsimile  on  p.  87  supra. 


VIII.] 


THE  DATE  OF  ZOILUS. 


IO9 


silent  contempt,  and  also  as  having  caused  him  to  be  crucified  for 
his  pains.  Zoi'lus  the  critic  is  now  regarded  as  identical  with 
Zoi'lus  the  rhetorician,  and  his  true  date  is  determined  by  the  fact 
that  the  rhetorician  was  a  pupil  of  Polycrates,  an  earlier  contem¬ 
porary  of  Isocrates,  that  his  rhetorical  writings  are  said  to  have 
been  studied  by  Demosthenes  in  his  youth  (c.  365  b.c.),  and  that 
he  composed  a  historical  work  ending  with  the  death  of  Philip 
(336  b.c.).  He  accordingly  flourished  between  the  above  dates. 
The  description  of  his  person  in  Aelian  ( Var .  Hist,  xi  10),  his 
short  cloak,  bis  long  beard  and  his  closely  shaven  crown,  are 
suggestive  of  a  Cynic.  His  pupil  Anaximenes  was  also  a  pupil 
of  Diogenes  the  Cynic ;  it  was  probably  in  sympathy  with  the 
Cynics  that  he  attacked  Plato ;  like  Antisthenes,  the  founder  of 
the  Cynics,  he  also  attacked  Isocrates  ;  and  above  all  he  signalised 
himself  by  attacking  Homer.  His  criticisms  on  Homer  filled 
nine  books,  and  the  designation  Homeromastix,  said  by  Suidas 
to  have  been  a  nickname  of  the  author,  may  possibly  have  been 
the  title  of  the  work.  It  included  an  encomium  on  the  ill-used 
Cyclops,  Polyphemus,  in  the  course  of  which  the  critic  remarked 
that,  as  soon  as  Odysseus  had  been  cursed  by  the  Cyclops,  he 
was  abandoned  even  by  his  guardian-goddess  Athene1.  The 
companions  of  Odysseus,  described  by  the  poet  as  ‘weeping’ 
when  turned  into  swine  by  Circe,  he  ridiculed  as  ‘  whining 
porkers’2;  he  satirised  the  perfect  symmetry  with  which  Odysseus, 
in  his  contest  with  the  Cicones,  lost  exactly  six  men  from  each  of 
his  ships  ( Od.  ix  60) ;  he  criticised  the  poet  for  describing 
Achilles  as  bidding  Patroclus  ‘  mingle  stronger  drink  ’  for  the 
Achaean  envoys  (It.  ix  203) ;  Apollo,  as  making  the  innocent 
mules  and  dogs  of  the  Achaean  camp  the  first  victims  of  his 
pestilential  arrows  (It.  i  50)  ;  and  Zeus  himself,  as  weighing  the 
Fates  in  a  pair  of  scales  (It.  xxii  209).  Like  Plato  (Rep.  388  a), 
he  found  fault  with  the  inordinate  grief  of  Achilles  over  the 
death  of  Patroclus  (It.  xviii  22).  He  also  carped  at  the  descrip¬ 
tion  of  Athene  causing  ‘the  fire  to  blaze  from  the  head  and 
shoulders  ’  of  Diomedes  (It.  v  7),  to  the  peril  of  that  hero’s  life, 
and  of  Idaeus  ‘ leaving  his  stately  chariot’  (It.  v  20),  when  he 

1  Schol.  on  ‘Plato’s’  Hipparchus ,  p.  229  D. 

2  xoiP^la  «\aiovTa  (wept  vpovs  9  §  14). 


I IO 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


might  have  escaped  more  easily  (if  that  indeed  had  been  his 
object)  by  remaining  in  it.  He  attacked  the  statement  that  ‘  the 
spirit  fled  away  beneath  the  ground,  like  smoke’  (//.  xxiii  ioo), 
whereas  smoke  rises  upwards.  Like  Chrysippus,  he  charged  Homer 
with  combining  a  plural  verb  with  a  singular  noun  in  II.  i  129, 
Zevs  S(v(tl,  and  was  refuted  by  Aristarchus,  who  pointed  out  that 
the  right  reading  was  Swo-i  (the  contracted  form  of  the  3rd  Person 
Singular  of  the  Subjunctive  Aorist  Sdr/ai),  as  in  Od.  i  168,  -Traryp 
d,7ro8wo'iv  \  But,  in  comparison  with  the  attacks  on  the  poet’s 
invention,  the  attacks  on  his  grammar  are  rather  rare.  A  con¬ 
fused  legend  preserved  by  Sui'das  makes  the  assembled  Greeks  at 
Olympia  indignantly  drive  him  from  the  festival  and  fling  him 
down  from  the  crest  of  the  Scironian  cliff's, — which  are  not  far 
from  the  scene  of  the  Isthtnian  games.  One  or  two  of  his 
criticisms  on  Homer  (those  on  II.  i  50  and  ix  203)  happen  to  be 
identical  with  those  to  which  Aristotle  replies  in  his  treatise  on 
Poetry  (c.  25).  In  the  Alexandrian  age  the  first  to  answer  his 
attack  on  Homer  was  Athenodorus,  the  brother  of  the  poet 
Aratus2,  while  in  Roman  times  he  is  described  by  Ovid  as  owing 
his  name  and  fame  solely  to  his  envious  detraction  of  the  merits 
of  Homer : 

‘  ingenium  magni  livor  detrectat  Homeri : 
quisquis  es,  ex  illo,  Zoi’le,  nomen  habes  ’ 3. 

To  return  to  our  immediate  subject,  the  number  of  mss 
comprised  in  the  two  Alexandrian  Libraries  is  variously  stated. 
We  are  informed  that,  in  reply  to  a  royal  inquiry,  it  was  stated  by 
Demetrius  of  Phaleron  (about  285  b.c.),  that  it  was  already 
200,000,  and  that  he  would  soon  bring  it  up  to  500,000’'.  In 
the  time  of  Callimachus  ( c .  3 \o-c.  235  b.c.),  the  larger  Library 
contained  400,000  volumes,  including  several  works  in  each 
volume,  and  also  90,000  separate  works5.  In  the  middle  of  the 

1  Cobet,  Misc.  Crit.  339. 

2  Susemihl,  i  293,  note  39. 

3  Remed.  Amoris,  365  (cp.  Pope’s  Essay  on  Criticism ,  465  f,  and  the 
sequel  to  1.  124  in  the  first  draft  of  the  poem).  On  Zoilus  see  esp.  Lehrs,  De 
Aristarchi  studiis ,  200 — 73,  and  Blass,  Att.  Ber.  iia  373 — 8;  and  cp.  Clinton’s 
Fasti ,  iii  380  f,  485. 

4  ‘Aristeas’  ap.  Euseb.  Praep.  Ev.  viii2  p.  350  a. 

5  Tzetzes,  ap.  Susemihl,  i  342. 


VIII.] 


ALEXANDRIA  AND  PERGAMON. 


1 1 1 


first  century  b.c.  the  number  is  said  to  have  been  700,000  \  The 
smaller  Library  comprised  42,800  volumes1 2,  which  were  probably 
comparatively  modern  mss  with  each  roll  complete  in  itself3. 

The  Ptolemies  are  said  to  have  resorted  to  many  ingenious 
devices  with  a  view  to  adding  to  the  treasures  of  their  Libraries. 
We  are  told  by  Galen  (xvii  a  p.  606)  that  the  numerous  vessels 
which  entered  the  harbour  were  compelled  to  surrender  any  mss 
which  they  had  on  board,  and  that  the  owners  of  these  mss  had 
to  rest  content  with  copies  of  the  same ;  these  mss  were  known 
as  tol  Ik  7tAoiW,  and  among  them  (according  to  one  version  of  the 
story)  was  a  ms  of  a  book  of  Hippocrates  brought  to  Alexandria 
by  the  physician  Mnemon  of  Side  in  Pamphylia4.  Galen  is  also 
the  authority  for  the  story  already  quoted  (p.  58)  as  to  the  way  in 
which  the  official  text  of  the  three  great  tragic  poets  of  Athens 
w^as  secured  for  Alexandria  by  Ptolemy  Euergetes,  i.e.  either  the 
first  of  that  name  (247-222  b.c.),  or  the  second5,  also  known  as 
Ptolemy  Physcon  (146-117  b.c.).  The  keenest  rivalry  arose 
between  the  royal  patrons  of  learning  at  Alexandria  and  Pergamon. 
It  is  even  stated  that  one  of  the  Ptolemies,  probably  Phila- 
delphus,  prohibited  the  export  of  paper  made  from  the  Egyptian 
papyrus ,  and  thus  led  to  the  use  of  skins  of  animals  as  materials 
for  writing  in  the  reign  of  the  Pergamene  prince,  Eumenes  (I, 
263-241  b.c.)6.  But  such  materials  had  been  long  in  use,  so  that 
we  can  only  infer  that  improvements  in  their  preparation  were 
introduced  at  Pergamon.  In  process  of  time  skins  were  made 
smooth  for  writing  on  both  sides,  instead  of  only  one,  and  the 
material  thus  manufactured  was  called  charta  pergamena ,  or 
*  parchment  * ;  but  the  word  is  not  found  earlier  than  the  Edict  of 
Diocletian  (301  a.d.)7.  Eumenes  II  (197-159  b.c.)  is  said  to 
have  invited  the  Alexandrian  Librarian,  Aristophanes  of  Byzan¬ 
tium,  to  leave  Alexandria  for  Pergamon,  and  the  mere  suspicion 
that  the  Librarian  was  ready  to  accept  such  an  invitation  prompted 
Ptolemy  Epiphanes  (205-182  b.c.)  to  put  him  in  prison8.  The 

1  Gellius  vi  17;  Amm.  Marc,  xxii  16,  13. 

2  Tzetzes,  u.s.  3  Dziatzko,  l.  c.,  p.  41 1. 

4  Susemihl,  i  815,  ii  681.  5  Usener  in  Susemihl,  ii  667. 

6  Pliny,  At.  H.  xiii  70.  7  Birt,  Antike  Buchwesen ,  p.  51. 

8  Sui'das,  ap.  Susemihl,  i  431 ;  cp.  ii  66 7. 


I  12 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


royal  passion  for  collecting  mss  at  Alexandria  and  Pergamon 
naturally  led  to  the  fabrication  of  many  spurious  works1;  and  to 
various  devices  lor  giving  recent  copies  a  false  appearance  of 
antiquity2;  it  also  led  to  careless  transcription  for  the  mere  sake 
of  rapidity  of  production3. 

It  will  be  remembered  that  the  Library  has  been  conjecturally 
placed  at  a  distance  of  about  400  yards  from  the  harbour  of 
Alexandria  (p.  107).  In  47  b.c.,  shortly  after  the  death  of  Pompey, 
the  conflicts  between  the  Roman  soldiers  and  the  Egyptians  in 
the  streets  of  the  city  compelled  Caesar  to  set  the  royal  fleet  on 
fire  to  prevent  its  falling  into  the  hands  of  the  Egyptians.  The 
naval  arsenal  was  also  burnt4.  According  to  the  historian  Orosius 
(e.  415  a.d.),  the  flames  spread  to  the  shore,  where  40,000 
volumes  happened  to  be  stored  up  in  the  adjacent  buildings5. 
The  phrase  used  by  Orosius  has  led  to  the  conjecture  that  these 
volumes,  having  been  removed  by  Caesar  from  the  Library,  were 
temporarily  stacked  in  certain  buildings  near  the  harbour,  with  a 
view  to  their  being  shipped  to  Rome  as  part  of  the  spoils  of 
conquest :  and  that  the  burning  of  these  books  led  to  the  legend 
of  the  burning  of  the  Library6.  It  is  not  at  all  probable  that  the 
Library  itself  was  at  this  time  consumed  by  fire.  The  author  of 
the  Bellum  Alexandrinum  (i  2)  expressly  states  that,  as  even  the 
private  houses  of  the  citizens,  including  the  very  floors  and  roofs, 
were  built  entirely  of  stone,  Alexandria  was  in  general  safe  from 
the  risk  of  a  conflagration.  Writing  about  80  a.d.,  Plutarch  in 
his  Life  of  Caesar  (c.  49)  implies  that  the  flames  spread  from  the 
fleet  to  the  docks  and  from  the  docks  to  the  Library ;  and,  early 
in  the  3rd  century,  Dio  Cassius  (xlii  38)  describes  the  arsenal  and 

1  Galen,  xv  p.  105,  TrpXv  yap  rods  ev  ’A \e%avdpeiq.  /cat  Hepyapup  yev&dac 

f3acn.\els  eirX  KTriaei.  (pi.\oTip.T]6^VTasi  ot}5e7ra>(!)  \f/ev8u>s  eireytypaTTTO 

avyypap.p.a'  Xap./3dveiv  5’  ap^apie voju  pucrdov  tQv  KOpu£op.tvuJi>  avrois  crdyy pa/ap.a 
rraXaLOv  tlvos  av8pbs,  ovtus  rfS?)  TroXXa  \pev8Qs  ernypacpovres  eKopa^ov,  and  ib. 
p.  109. 

2  David  (or  Elias)  in  Schol.  on  Aristot.  28  a  13  f  (Susemihl,  ii  413,  note 

367)- 

3  Strabo,  609  (Susemihl,  ii  667  f).  4  Caesar,  B.  C.  iii  in. 

5  Orosius,  vi  15,  31,  quadraginta  milia  librorum  proximis  forte  aedibus 

condita  exussit. 

6  Parthey,  Museum  Alex.  p.  32. 


VIII.]  FATE  OF  THE  ALEXANDRIAN  LIBRARY.  1 1 3 

the  stores  of  corn  and  of  books  as  having  perished  in  the  flames ; 
but  these  accounts  seem  less  probable  than  the  suggestion  that  it 
was  not  the  Library  itself,  but  only  those  of  the  books  which  had 
been  transferred  to  buildings  near  the  harbour,  that  suffered 
destruction.  The  Court  Journals  at  Alexandria  were  consulted 
not  only  by  Diodorus  Siculus  (iii  38),  before  Caesar’s  visit,  but 
also  by  Appian  (Praef.  10)  long  after  (c.  160  a.d.).  The  story  of 
the  burning  of  the  Library  is  not  mentioned  either  by  Cicero,  who 
shortly  afterwards  induced  Cleopatra,  during  her  stay  in  Rome,  to 
promise  to  get  him  some  books  from  Alexandria1,  or  by  Strabo, 
who  visited  Alexandria  only  22  years  later.  The  earliest  mention 
of  the  disaster  which  befell  the  mss  is  in  Seneca2.  ‘The  Per- 
gamene  Libraries’,  containing  200,000  separate  volumes,  were 
presented  to  Cleopatra  by  Antonius  in  41  b.c.  (Plut.  Ant.  58),  and 
Domitian  is  said  to  have  supplemented  the  deficiences  of  the 
libraries  in  Italy  by  means  of  transcripts  from  the  Alexandrian 
mss  (Suet.  Dom.  20).  In  the  time  of  Aurelian  (272  a.d.)  the 
larger  part  of  the  region  of  Alexandria  in  which  the  Library  was 
situated  was  laid  waste  (Amm.  Marc,  xxii  16,  5),  and  it  may  be 
conjectured  that  this  was  the  date  when  the  Library  suffered  most 
damage ;  for,  late  in  the  following  century,  we  find  a  rhetorician 
of  Antioch,  Aphthonius,  assigning  a  special  importance  to  another 
Library,  identified  as  that  of  the  Serapeum 3.  Under  Theodosius  I 
(391  a.d.)  the  temple  of  Serapis,  which  had  been  partly  burnt  in 
183  a.d.,  was  demolished,  and  transformed  into  a  church  and 
monastery,  by  Theophilus,  the  patriarch  of  Alexandria,  and  the 
lesser  Library  of  the  Serapeum  can  hardly  have  survived  this 
destruction.  Orosius,  at  the  time  of  his  visit,  saw  only  empty 
book-cases  in  ‘the  temples’  of  the  city4,  but  his  evidence  is  very 
vague5.  In  642  a.d.,  when  Amrou,  the  general  of  Omar,  Caliph 
of  the  Saracens,  captured  Alexandria,  it  is  stated  that  Johannes 

1  Ad  Att.  xiv  8,  xv  15  (Mahaffy,  l.c.,  461). 

2  De  Tranq.  An.  9,  quadraginta  milia  librorum  Alexandriae  arserunt. 

3  Aphthonius,  quoted  on  p.  108. 

4  Orosius,  vi  15,  32,  quamlibet  hodieque  in  templis  exstent,  quae  et  nos 
vidimus,  armaria  librorum,  quibus  direptis  exinanita  et  a  rusticis  hominibus 
nostris  temporibus  memorant,  etc. 

5  Bury’s  Gibbon,  iii  495. 

S. 


8 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


1 14 


Philoponus,  the  commentator  on  Aristotle,  asked  the  conqueror 
for  the  gift  of  the  Alexandrian  Library,  that  the  conqueror  felt 
constrained  to  consult  the  Caliph,  and  that  the  Caliph  made  the 
well-known  reply : — £  if  these  writings  of  the  Greeks  agree  with 
the  book  of  God,  they  are  useless  and  need  not  be  preserved ;  if 
they  disagree,  they  are  pernicious  and  ought  to  be  destroyed  \ 
It  is  added  that  the  contents  of  the  Library  were  consigned  to  the 
flames,  and  that  they  served  for  six  months  as  fuel  for  the  4000 
baths  of  Alexandria.  The  authority  for  this  story  is  Abul- 
pharagius1 ;  but  it  has  been  urged  by  Gibbon  (c.  51)  that  his 
account,  written  in  a  distant  province  six  centuries  after  the 
event,  is  refuted  by  the  silence  of  two  annalists  of  an  earlier  date 
and  of  a  direct  connexion  with  Alexandria,  the  more  ancient  of 
whom,  the  patriarch  Eutychius,  has  minutely  described  the 
destruction  of  the  city.  The  destruction  of  books,  the  historian 
adds,  is  contrary  to  the  principles  of  Mohammedanism.  In  any 
case  it  may  well  be  doubted  whether  any  large  number  of  ancient 
mss  were  still  to  be  found  in  Alexandria  at  the  date  of  its  capture 
by  the  general  of  the  Saracens2. 

The  first  four  Librarians  of  Alexandria  were  Zenodotus 
( c .  285-r.  234  b.c.);  Eratosthenes  ( c .  234-195); 
Aristophanes  of  Byzantium  (195-180);  and  Aris¬ 
tarchus  (180  or  172-146).  It  has  sometimes  been 
supposed  that  Callimachus  was  Librarian  between  the  time  of 
Zenodotus  and  that  of  Eratosthenes  ;  and  Apollonius  Rhodius, 
between  that  of  Eratosthenes  and  Aristophanes ;  but  chrono¬ 
logical  considerations  make  this  view  improbable3.  Nearly  a 
century  after  the  appointment  of  Aristarchus,  an  inscription  from 
Paphos  shows  that  the  office  was  given,  after  89  b.c.,  to  a  kinsman 
and  priest  of  Ptolemy  Soter  II  (Lathyrus),  named  Onesander, 
who  is  otherwise  unknown4. 


The 

Librarians 


1  Dynast,  p.  114,  vers.  Pocock  (cp.  Bury’s  Gibbon,  v  453,  515). 

2  Cp.  Susemihl,  i  344.  The  modern  writers  agreeing  or  disagreeing  with 
Gibbon  on  this  point  are  quoted  by  Parthey,  A/us.  Alex.  p.  106.  Cp.  notes  in 
Bury’s  Gibbon,  v  454,  and  452  (where  it  is  observed  that  Philoponus  lived 
more  than  a  century  before  the  conquest  of  Alexandria). 

3  Busch,  De  bibliothecariis  Alex,  qui  feruntur  primis,  1884 ;  Dziatzko  in 
Pauly- Wissowa,  s.v.  Bibliotheken ,  p.  412. 

4  Journ.  Hell.  St.  ix  240. 


VIII.] 


ALEXANDRIAN  LITERATURE. 


1 15 


Of  the  names  above  mentioned  Callimachus  and  Apollonius 
Rhodius  are  celebrated  in  the  history  of  Literature  as  well  as  in 
that  of  Scholarship ;  we  may  therefore  cast  a  passing  glance  on 
the  literature  of  the  Alexandrian  age  before  giving  a  more 
detailed  account  of  the  representatives  of  Scholarship  in  the  same 
period. 

The  literature  of  this  age  was  slavishly  imitative  rather  than 
spontaneously  creative ;  it  was  inspired  not  by  the 
immediate  impulse  of  true  genius,  but  by  the  ligature1”3" 
reflected  reminiscences  of  a  golden  age  that  was 
gone  for  ever ;  it  appealed  not  to  the  general  body  of  free  citizens, 
but  to  the  cultivated  few,  who  formed  a  separate  class  of  men  of 
learned  and  critical  tastes,  either  actually  enjoying  or  attempting 
to  attract  the  favour  of  the  court,  amid  the  multitudinous  popula¬ 
tion  of  a  vast  commercial  city.  In  this  age  Parody  and  Satire  are 
represented  by  Timon  of  Phlius  (a  315-c.  226),  who  lived  at 
Calchedon  and  Athens,  cultivating  his  garden  to  the  age  of  nearly 
ninety,  and  using  the  vehicle  of  hexameter  verse  for  those  criti¬ 
cisms  on  the  dogmatic  schools  of  philosophy,  which  incidentally 
supply  us  with  an  early  satirical  allusion  to  the  Alexandrian 
Museum  (p.  103).  Pastoral  Poetry  is  represented  by  Theocritus 
of  Syracuse  (fl.  272  b.c.).  Of  his  idylls,  the  17th  (273-1  b.c.)  is 
an  encomium  on  Ptolemy  Philadelphus,  celebrating  his  extensive 
empire,  his  extraordinary  wealth,  and  his  generosity  towards 
priests  and  poets;  the'i4th  (after  269  b.c.)  is  on  the  soldiers  in 
his  service;  the  15th,  the  Adoniazusae  (before  270  b.c.),  paints  a 
graphic  picture  of  the  thronging  crowds  of  Alexandria  at  a  festival 
attended  by  two  ladies  from  Syracuse ;  while  his  bucolic  poems  in 
general  must  have  charmed  the  dwellers  amid  the  dust  and  din 
and  glare  of  Alexandria  with  glimpses  of  the  idyllic  life  of 
shepherds  and  herdsmen  resting  beside  the  fountains  beneath  the 
plane-trees,  or  amid  the  pine-woods  and  the  upland  pastures  that 
look  down  on  the  Sicilian  sea.  With  Theocritus  we  associate  the 
two  other  bucolic  poets,  Moschus  of  Syracuse,  the  author  of  the 
Runaway  Eros  ( c .  150),  and  Bion  of  Smyrna,  the  author  of  the 
Lament  for  Adonis  ( c .  100  b.c.).  The  recently  recovered  Mimes 
of  Herondas  may  be  as  early  as  the  latter  part  of  the  reign  of 
Philadelphus.  Theocritus  and  Herondas  alike  found  a  model  in 

8—2 


1 1 6 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


the  Mimes  of  Sophron,  which  must  have  remained  in  existence 
till  late  in  the  first  or  early  in  the  second  century  a.d.,  as  the 
label  of  a  ms  of  that  date  has  been  found  in  Egypt1.  Didactic 
Poetry  is  represented  by  Aratus  of  Soli,  who  lived  at  the  court  of 
Pella  (276  b.c.),  and  imitated  Hesiod  in  his  extant  astronomical 
poem  entitled  the  Phaenomena ,  paraphrased  from  Eudoxus, 
concluding  with  Prognostics  of  the  Weather ,  paraphrased  from 
Theophrastus.  It  was  a  work  that  won  the  praises  of  Calli¬ 
machus  ( Anth .  ix  507),  and,  in  the  Roman  age,  the  compliment 
of  repeated  translation  by  Varro  Atacinus,  Cicero,  Germanicus 
and  Avienus.  Didactic  poetry  is  also  represented  by  the  extant 
epics  on  venomous  bites  ( Theriaca )  and  on  antidotes  ( Alexi - 
pharmaca)  composed  by  Nicander  (150  b.c.),  one  of  whose  lost 
poems  was  imitated  in  the  Metamorphoses  of  Ovid.  Other 
learned  types  of  verse  are  represented  by  the  elegiac  Hymns  and 
Epigrams  of  Callimachus  (c.  310 -c.  235),  by  the  epic  poem  of 
Apollonius  Rhodius  (f.  c.  250-200)  on  the  Argonauts,  and  by  the 
iambic  drama  of  Lycophron  (c.  295).  In  the  same  age  mathema¬ 
tical  and  other  kindred  sciences  were  represented  by  Euclid  (f. 
300  b.c.)2,  and  Archimedes  of  Syracuse  (c.  287-212  b.c.);  by  those 
masters  of  Mechanics,  Heron  of  Alexandria  and  Philon  of  Byzan¬ 
tium  ;  by  the  earliest  writer  on  Conic  Sections,  Apollonius  of  Perga, 
and  by  the  astronomer,  Hipparchus  of  Nicaea;  Geography,  by 
Eratosthenes;  the  Chronology  of  Chaldaea  by  Berosus  (280),  that 
of  Egypt  by  Manetho  (277),  and  that  of  Greece  by  the  unknown 
author  of  the  Parian  Marble,  now  in  Oxford,  with  its  summary  of 
Greek  history  beginning  from  the  earliest  times  and  originally 
ending  with  264  b.c.3  The  important  trilingual  inscriptions,  in 
hieroglyphic  and  demotic  Egyptian  and  in  Greek,  which  are 
known  as  the  ‘decree  of  Canopus’,  discovered  by  Lepsius  in 

1  Oxyrhynchus  Papyri ,  ii  p.  303. 

2  It  was  Ptolemy  I  who  was  informed  by  Euclid  that  there  was  no  royal 
road  to  geometry  (Proclus  in  Eucl.  p.  68). 

3  ed.  Flach,  1884.  The  fall  of  Troy  is  here  assigned  to  1208  B.c.  It  had 
previously  been  assigned  to  1171  B.c.  by  Sosibius,  a  member  of  the  Alexan¬ 
drian  Museum  under  Ptolemy  II,  and  the  author  of  a  chronological  work,  in 
which  Homer  is  described  as  having  flourished  c.  865  B.c.  The  fall  of  Troy 
was  afterwards  placed  by  Eratosthenes  in  1184,  and  this  has  become  the 
traditional  date. 


VIII.] 


ALEXANDRIAN  LITERATURE. 


II 7 

1865,  and  the  ‘  decree  of  Memphis  5  or  the  ‘  Rosetta  Stone  5,  found 
by  the  French  near  the  Rosetta  mouth  of  the  Nile  in  1798,  belong 
to  the  years  238  and  196  respectively1.  The  ‘Rosetta  Stone5 
was  placed  in  the  British  Museum  in  1802,  and  the  Greek  text 
restored  by  Porson  early  in  the  following  year;  it  afterwards 
supplied  Young  and  Champollion  with  the  key  to  the  deciphering 
of  Egyptian  hieroglyphics.  The  great  age  of  Alexandrian  criti¬ 
cism  is  drawing  to  its  end  with  the  death  of  Aristarchus  about 
145  b.c.,  when  we  reach  an  important  representative  of  History 
in  the  person  of  Polybius  ( c .  205-c.  123),  who  in  146  b.c. 
witnessed  the  destruction  of  Carthage  and  the  burning  of  Corinth, 
closing  with  that  year  his  record  of  Roman  conquest,  which 
throws  light  on  the  history  of  Egypt,  especially  between  the 
accession  of  Ptolemy  Philopator  (222  b.c  )  and  that  of  Ptolemy 
Physcon  (146).  Though  he  is  the  first  great  historian  since 
Herodotus  and  Thucydides,  he  is  little  interested  in  the  earlier 
Greek  literature,  quoting  Herodotus  only  twice,  and  Thucydides 
and  Xenophon  only  once.  His  historic  vision  rests  far  less  on 
Alexandria  than  on  Rome ;  and,  in  the  history  of  Scholarship, 
his  work  is  mainly  interesting  as  the  earliest  and  best  example, 
now  extant,  of  the  ‘common  dialect5,  founded  on  Attic  Prose, 
which  prevailed  in  the  Greek  world  from  about  300  b.c.  In  the 
century  after  Polybius  we  find  in  Diodorus  Siculus  ( c .  40  b.c.)  a 
historian  who  took  Ephorus,  the  pupil  of  Isocrates,  for  his  model, 
and  who,  in  compiling  a  history  which  ended  with  Caesar’s  Gallic 
Wars,  consulted  the  Libraries  and  the  public  archives  of  Rome, 
visited  Alexandria  and  parts  of  Upper  Egypt  about  60  b.c.,  and, 
in  relating  the  early  history  of  Egypt,  paused  over  the  name  of 
the  ancient  king,  Osymandyas,  who  placed  above  the  portal  of  a 
library  of  sacred  books  in  Thebes  an  inscription  describing  it  as 
a  ‘  sanatorium  for  the  soul 5  2.  Of  Alexandria  at  the  date  of  his 
own  visit  he  tells  us,  as  an  eye-witness,  that  a  Roman  who  had 
accidentally  killed  a  cat  was  mercilessly  put  to  death  by  the 
populace  (i  14).  The  incident  is  of  some  importance  for 
our  present  purpose.  It  proves  that  the  mob  of  Alexandria 

1  Texts  in  Mahafify,  /.  c.,  pp.  226 — 239,  and  316 — 327. 

2  Diod.  Sic.  i  49,  3,  if/vxvs  larpeiov.  The  king  has  been  identified  with 
Ramses  (II)  Miamun  (cent.  14  b.c.). 


ii  8 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


was  ‘no  longer  Greek,  as  it  professed  to  be’,  but  was  ‘deeply 
saturated  with  Egyptian  blood51,  thus  showing  that,  towards  the 
close  of  the  Alexandrian  age,  as  at  the  beginning,  Greek  civilisa¬ 
tion  in  Alexandria  was  confined  to  a  very  limited  circle. 

The  Alexandrian  age  is  in  the  main  an  age  of  erudition  and 
criticism.  Even  its  poets  are  often  scholars.  The 

Philetas  , 

earliest  of  the  scholars  and  poets  of  this  age  is 
Philetas  of  Cos1 2  (c.  340 — c,  285-3),  the  preceptor  not  only  of 
Ptolemy  Philadelphus  (about  295-2  b.c.),  but  also  of  Zenodotus 
and  of  the  elegiac  poet  Hermesianax.  He  was  remarkable  for 
the  extreme  delicacy  of  his  frame ;  it  is  even  stated  that  he  was 
compelled  to  wear  leaden  soles  to  prevent  his  being  blown  away 
by  the  wind3.  He  was  the  author  of  a  glossary  of  unusual  poetic 
words,  quoted  as  araKra  or  a tolktoi  yA-djcrcrcu  or  simply  yX.(vcraaL4. 
The  readings  which  he  preferred  in  the  Homeric  text  are  noticed 
in  several  of  the  scholia 5,  and  he  was  criticised  by  a  greater 
Homeric  scholar,  Aristarchus,  in  a  work  entitled  7 rpos  ^lX^tolv. 
About  292  he  returned  to  Cos,  where  he  apparently  presided  over 
a  brotherhood  of  poets  including  Theocritus  and  Aratus6.  Cos 
had  been  ‘liberated5  from  Antigonus  by  Ptolemy  Soter  in  310; 
in  that  island  his  son  Philadelphus  had  been  born  in  308 ;  and 
from  this  time  onwards  it  was  closely  connected  with  Alexandria. 
It  was  a  place  of  safety  for  royal  exiles ;  and,  with  its  lofty 
mountains  and  its  verdant  slopes,  it  was  also  a  favourite  retreat 
for  men  of  letters  weary  of  the  heat  and  turmoil  of  the  great 
commercial  city7.  It  is  doubtful  whether  it  was  a  ‘place  of 
education  for  royal  princes 5 ;  it  seems  more  probable  that 
Philetas  was  summoned  to  Alexandria  than  that  Philadelphus 

1  Mahaffy,  l.c.  440.  2  Strabo,  657  ult.,  TroirjTTjs  a/na  kclI  xpirucds. 

3  Athen.  552  b  ;  Aelian,  V.  H.  ix  14.  4  Cp.  Athen.  383  B. 

5  //.  ii  269,  xxi  126,  179,  252  (Susemihl,  i  179,  n.  26). 

6  Susemihl,  i  175,  and  in  Philologus,  57  (1898).  The  identification  of 
Aratus  the  friend  of  Theocritus  (Id.  vi)  with  the  astronomical  poet  is  doubtful 

(cp.  Wilamowitz  in  Gottingen  Nachrichten ,  1894,  quoted  in  Cholmeley’s 

Theocritus ,  p.  17). 

7  Mahaffy,  /.  c.  54.  Cos  is  the  scene  of  the  second  poem  of  Herondas. 
It  was  off  Cos  that  Philadelphus  was  defeated  by  Antigonus  c.  258,  thus 
losing  for  a  time  the  mastery  of  the  sea  which  he  recovered  off  Andros  in  247 
(id.  150). 


VIII.] 


PHILETAS.  ZENODOTUS. 


119 


Zenodotus 


was  sent  to  Cos.  As  a  poet,  Philetas  was  a  writer  of  amatory 
elegiacs  of  simple  form,  but  without  any  special  power.  At 
Alexandria  his  fame  was  soon  superseded  by  that  of  Callimachus, 
though  Roman  writers  regard  them  as  nearly  equal  in  repute. 
They  are  linked  together  in  a  well-known  couplet  of  Propertius 
(iv  1,  1) 

‘Callimachi  manes  et  Coi  sacra  Philetae, 

in  vestrum,  quaeso,  me  sinite  ire  nemusV 

His  pupil  Zenodotus  of  Ephesus  (> c .  325-c:.  234  b.c.)  was 
made  the  first  Librarian  of  the  great  Alexandrian 
Library  early  in  the  reign  of  Ptolemy  Philadelphus. 

As  Librarian,  Zenodotus  classified  the  epic  and  lyric  poets,  while 
Alexander  Aetolus  dealt  with  the  tragic  and  Lycophron  with  the 
comic  drama2.  He  compiled  a  Homeric  glossary,  in  which  he 
was  apparently  content  with  merely  guessing  at  the  meaning  of 
difficult  words3.  Shortly  before  274  he  produced  the  first 
scientific  edition  of  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey.  It  was  about  that  date 
that  Timon  of  Phlius,  when  consulted  by  the  poet  Aratus  about  a 
proposed  edition  of  Homer,  replied  that  it  must  be  founded  on 
ancient  mss  and  not  on  those  that  had  already  been  revised  (to Is 
17877  8iwp#oo/xeWs)4.  Zenodotus  is  described  as  the  earliest  editor 
(SiopOwryjs)  of  Homer5;  his  edition  was  founded  on  numerous 
mss  ;  each  of  the  two  poems  was  now  for  the  first  time  divided 
into  24  books,  and  spurious  lines  marked  with  a  marginal  obelus. 
His  reasons  for  condemning  such  lines  were  mainly  because  he 
deemed  them  inconsistent  with  the  context,  or  unsuited  to  the 
persons,  whether  deities  or  heroes,  whose  action  is  there  described. 
Thus  he  rejected  Iliad  iii  423-6  on  the  ground  that  it  was 
unbecoming  for  Aphrodite  to  ‘carry  a  seat’  for  Helen;  and 
similarly  he  altered  a  passage  in  iv  88,  because  it  is  out  of 


1  Cp.  iii  26,  31 ;  iv  3,  52 ;  v  6,  3  ;  Quint.  X  1,  58. 

2  Scholium  11  of  Tzetzes  on  Greek  Comedy:  §  19  in  Studemund’s  article 
in  Philologies  46  (1888)  p.  10,  iarbov  8tl  ’ AXb^avSpos  6  AlrwAds  /cal  AvKocppiov  6 
XaX/a5eus  vvo  UroXe/xaiov  rov  $i\a8b\<pov  irpoTpawbures  ras  CKr]viKas  8u opdwaav 
/3t/3Xous'  A vKoeppwv  p.ev  ras  tt)s  KOJfxcpSias,  'AXb^avSpos  8b  ras  rrjs  rpaycpSias,  ib. 
§  21  ras  8b  ye  aKrjviKas  ’ AXb^avSpos  Te...Kai  AvKocppuv  Suopdiocravro'  ras  8b  ye 
TroirjTiKCLS  ZitjvoSotos  irpCbrov  Kai  iiarepov  ’  ApLcrTapxos  SuopOwcravTO. 

3  Knaack,  s.v.  Alexandrinische  Litt.  in  Pauly-Wissowa,  p.  1404. 

4  Diog.  Laert.  ix  113.  5  Suidas,  s.v. 


120 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


character  for  a  goddess  to  endeavour  to  find  the  object  of  her 
search.  In  both  cases  a  later  critic  in  the  Venetian  scholia 
(probably  Aristarchus)  triumphantly  replies  that  the  goddess  is 
for  the  time  disguised  in  human  form,  and  the  supposed  im¬ 
propriety  vanishes1.  Himself  an  epic  poet,  he  occasionally 
inserted  verses  of  his  own  to  complete  the  sense,  or  blended 
portions  of  several  verses  into  one.  He  deserves  credit,  however, 
for  making  the  comparison  of  mss  the  foundation  of  his  text. 
Our  knowledge  of  his  criticisms  rests  almost  entirely  on  statements 
recorded  in  the  scholia  on  the  Venice  ms  (A)  of  Homer.  He 
sometimes  confuses  tr<£ tot  (2d  person)  and  acf> wi  (3d  person),  vwl 
(Nom.  and  Acc.)  and  vahv  (Gen.  and  Dat.)2,  makes  the  dual 
interchangeable  with  the  plural,  regards  -arat  as  a  singular  as  well 
as  a  plural  termination,  and  -no  instead  of  -uov  as  a  termination  of 
the  Comparative ;  but  he  rightly  recognises  the  fact  that  eos  is  not 
confined  to  the  third  person,  and  the  readings  preferred  by  him 
are  not  unfrequently  important3.  He  is  sometimes  right,  when 
his  great  successors,  Aristophanes  and  Aristarchus,  are  wrong4. 
His  recension  of  Homer  was  the  first  recension  of  any  text  which 
aimed  at  restoring  the  genuine  original.  It  was  succeeded  by  a 
recension  executed  with  taste  and  judgement  by  the  epic  poet 
Rhianus5.  Zenodotus  also  produced  a  recension  of  Hesiod’s 
Theogony ,  and  possibly  one  of  Pindar  and  Anacreon6.  His 
merits  as  a  Homeric  critic  are  well  summed  up  by  Sir  Richard 
Jebb.  ‘In  the  dawn  of  the  new  scholarship,  he  appears  as  a 
gifted  man  with  a  critical  aim,  but  without  an  adequate  critical 
method.  He  insisted  on  the  study  of  Homer’s  style ;  but  he 
failed  to  place  that  study  on  a  sound  basis.  The  cause  of  this 
was  that  he  often  omitted  to  distinguish  between  the  ordinary 
usages  of  words  and  those  peculiar  to  Homer.  In  regard  to 

1  Lehrs,  De  Aristarchi  Studiis  Homericis,  p.  333s;  cp.  Cobet,  Mi  sc.  Crit. 
225  —  39  (esp.  227,  234)  and  251. 

2  Cobet,  /.  c.  250. 

3  See  Index  to  Dr  Leaf’s  Iliad ,  s.v.  Zenodolus. 

4  Romer  in  Abhandl.  Munch.  A  had.  I  Cl.  xvii  639 — 722. 

5  MayhofF,  De  Rhiani  Crelensis  Studiis  Homericis ,  1870,  ap.  Susemihl,  i 

399  f- 

6  Diintzer,  De  Z.  Studiis  Homericis ,  1848;  Romer,  /.  c. ;  Christ,  §  428*; 
Susemihl,  i  330 — 4,  and  Hiibner’s  Bibliographie,  §  7. 


VIII.]  ALEXANDER  AETOLUS.  LYCOPHRON. 


1 2 1 


dialect,  again,  he  did  not  sufficiently  discriminate  the  older  from 
the  later  Ionic.  And,  relying  too  much  on  his  own  feeling  for 
Homer’s  spirit,  he  indulged  in  some  arbitrary  emendations. 
Still,  he  broke  new  ground ;  his  work  had  .a  great  repute ;  and  to 
some  extent,  its  influence  was  lasting  ’  \ 

Alexander  Aetolus  (born  c.  315,  fl.  285-276  b.c.)  was 
responsible  for  the  classification  of  the  tragic  and 
satyric  dramas  in  the  Alexandrian  Library.  It  is  Aetolus"^ 
probably  owing  to  this  fact  that  he  is  called  a 
ypa/x/xartKos  by  Suidas.  His  work  at  Alexandria  lasted  from 
c.  285  to  276  b.c.,  at  which  date  he  withdrew  to  the  Macedonian 
capital  of  Antigonus  Gonatas.  In  his  youth  he  was  probably  a 
companion  of  Theocritus  and  Aratus  in  Cos,  and  he  was  also 
associated  with  the  latter  in  Macedonia.  As  a  tragic  poet,  he 
was  included  among  the  seven  known  as  the  Alexandrian  Pleias. 
He  also  wrote  in  epic  verse,  and  in  anapaestic  tetrameters. 
Among  the  latter  were  some  notable  lines  on  Euripides : — 

6  8 ’  'Auai-ayopov  rpocpipos  xaL°v  (TTpupvos  pev  ’Ipoiye  irpoaenrelv, 
kclI  puroylXios,  Kal  TwOa£eiv  ou8b  Trap ’  olvov  pepadrjKibs, 
aXX'  0  tl  ypaxf/ai,  tout’  cLv  pIXltos  Kal  creiprjviov  erereuxei1 2. 

Lycophron  of  -Chalcis  in  Euboea  (born  c.  330-325  b.c.)  was 
summoned  to  Alexandria  c.  285  b.c.,  and  entrusted 

...  r  ,  .  .  .  Lycophron 

with  the  arrangement  01  the  comic  poets  in  the 
Alexandrian  Library.  About  ten  years  previously  ( c .  295)  he 
had  written  his  Alexandra ,  a  very  lengthy  tragic  monologue 
consisting  of  a  strange  combination  of  mythological,  historical  and 
linguistic  learning,  grievously  wanting  in  taste  and  deliberately 
obscure  in  expression.  He  was  one  of  the  tragic  Pleias  of 
Alexandria.  He  also  wrote  the  earliest  treatise  on  Comedy  in  at 
least  eleven  books,  the  extant  fragments  of  which  give  an  un¬ 
favourable  impression  of  his  attainments  as  a  scholar3. 

Callimachus  of  Cyrene  (c.^io-c.  235),  and  his  somewhat  earlier 
contemporary  Aratus,  studied  at  Athens  under  the  Peripatetic 

1  Jebb’s  Homer ,  p.  92  f. 

2  ap.  Gellius  xv  20,  8.  Cp.  Meineke,  Analecta  Alexandrina ,  215 — 251; 
Couat,  Poesie  Alex.  105 — no;  Susemihl,  i  187 — 190. 

3  Strecker,  De  Lycophrone  etc.,  ap.  Susemihl,  i  274;  Lycophron ’s  Alex¬ 
andra ,  ed.  Holzinger,  1895;  and  Hiibner,  Bibliographie ,  §  7. 


122 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Praxiphanes  (p.  ioo).  In  his  youth  he  was  invited  to  Alexandria, 

where  he  spent  the  rest  of  his  life.  His  Coma 

Callimachus  ...  ,  ,  ,  . 

Berenices,  written  m  246  b.c.,  and  only  preserved  in 
the  translation  by  Catullus,  incidentally  refers  to  the  famous  sister 
and  second  wife  of  Ptolemy  Philadelphus,  Arsinoe  II,  who  died 
in  270  b.c.  (p.  106),  and  was  worshipped  as  Aphrodite  Zephyritis, 
while  the  poem  as  a  whole  is  intended  as  a  compliment  to 
Berenice,  the  newly-wedded  queen  of  Ptolemy  Euergetes  I.  His 
literary  feud  with  Apollonius  Rhodius  ( c .  263  b.c.)  has  left  its 
mark  on  the  poems  of  both1 .  Even  in  his  old  age  he  was  still 
conscious  of  this  feud,  when  he  described  himself  as  having  ‘  sung 
strains  which  envy  could  not  touch  ’,  o  8’  Kpeacrova  (3a- 

(TKavLrjs2.  In  contrast  to  the  vast  and  diffuse  epic  of  Apollonius, 
he  preferred  composing  hymns  and  epigrams,  and  treating  heroic 
themes  on  a  small  scale,  expressing  his  aim  in  a  phrase  that  has 
become  proverbial : — /xeya  (3l(3X.lov  pteya  Kaxov3.  He  is  sometimes 
supposed  to  have  succeeded  Zenodotus  as  head  of  the  Alex¬ 
andrian  Library.  Whether  he  actually  held  that  official  position  or 
not,  he  was  certainly  a  most  industrious  bibliographer.  He  is 
said  to  have  drawn  up  lists  of  literary  celebrities  in  no  less  than 
120  volumes  described  as  7riVa,K€q  t<2v  iv  7racr rj  vaiSe/a  SiaXafxxf/dvTWv 
Kal  wv  crvvtypaifrav.  This  vast  work  was  far  more  than  a  mere 
catalogue.  It  included  brief  lives  of  the  principal  authors,  and, 
in  the  case  of  the  Attic  drama,  the  dates  of  the  production  of  the 
plays.  It  was  divided  into  eight  classes  : — (1)  Dramatists,  (2)  Epic 
poets  etc.,  (3)  Legislators,  (4)  Philosophers,  (5)  Historians, 
(6)  Orators,  (7)  Rhetoricians,  (8)  Miscellaneous  Writers.  In  the 
Drama,  the  order  was  that  of  date ;  in  Pindar  and  Demosthenes, 
that  of  subject ;  in  Theophrastus  and  in  the  Miscellaneous 
Writers,  the  order  was  alphabetical.  If  the  authorship  was 
disputed,  the  various  views  were  stated.  In  these  lists,  as  well 
as  on  the  label  (o-tAA.u/?os)  attached  to  each  roll  in  the  Library, 


1  Apollonius  in  Anth.  Pal.  xi  275,  KaXX^axos'  rb  nadappa,  to  iraiyvLov, 
b  £vXi vos  vov s.  |  a’LTLos’  b  ypapas  ‘  atria  Ka Wi.pi.dxov'  (Croiset,  Lift.  Gr.  v 
211),  Argonautica ,  iii  932  f;  and  Callimachus  in  Hymn  to  Apollo,  105 — 114. 

2  Epigr.  21,  4. 

3  Athen.  72  A,  KaXXfyia%os  6  ypapt-pariKbs  rb  pty a  j3i/3\lov  itrov  ZXeyev  elvac 
Tip  p.eya\(p  Kaicip. 


VIII.] 


CALLIMACHUS.  ERATOSTHENES. 


123 


the  opening  words  and  the  number  of  lines  contained  in  each 
work  were  given,  in  addition  to  the  author  and  the  title1.  Legends 
of  the  origin  and  foundation  of  various  cities  were  included 
not  only  in  the  four  books  of  his  poem  known  as  the  Aina,  but 
also  in  one  of  his  prose-works.  Among  the  latter  was  a  list  of 
the  writings  and  of  the  provincialisms  of  Democritus.  His  works 
in  prose  and  verse  extended  to  over  800  volumes2.  To  his  school 
belonged  some  of  the  most  celebrated  scholars  and  poets,  such  as 
Eratosthenes,  Aristophanes  of  Byzantium,  his  own  rival  Apollonius 
Rhodius,  with  Hermippus,  Istrus,  and  Philostephanus  of  Cyrene. 
His  monograph  on  the  different  names  given  to  the  same  thing  in 
different  nations,  and  a  work  on  dialects  by  Dionysius  Iambos, 
had  a  considerable  effect  on  linguistic  research  in  the  next 
generation.  This  may  be  traced  not  only  in  the  remains  of 
Aristophanes  and  Istrus,  but  also  in  those  of  Neoptolemus  of 
Parion  and  Philemon  of  Athens.  Neoptolemus  wrote  on 
‘  glosses  ’,  and  also  composed  a  treatise  on  poetry,  which  was  one 
of  the  authorities  followed  by  Horace  in  his  Ars  Poetica 3 ;  while 
Philemon  wrote  on  ‘Attic  nouns  and  glosses’,  and  was  the 
precursor  of  the  purists  who  in  later  times  maintained  the  integrity 
of  Attic  Greek  against  foreign  corruption4. 

While  the  evidence  in  favour  of  describing  Callimachus  as 
head  of  the  Alexandrian  Library  is  very  far  from  conclusive,  and 
indeed  depends  mainly  on  a  priori  probabilities,  it  is  certain  that 
that  high  office  was  actually  filled  by  his  pupil  and  fellow-country¬ 
man,  Eratosthenes  of  Cyrene,  who  is  now  generally  regarded  as 
the  second  of  the  Alexandrian  Librarians. 

Eratosthenes  ( c .  276 — c.  196-4  b.c.)  spent  some  years  in 
Athens,  whence  he  was  recalled  to  Alexandria  by 

Eratosthenes 

Ptolemy  Euergetes  (c.  235  b.c.),  and  placed  at  the 
head  of  the  Library.  He  remained  in  that  important  position 
during  the  reigns  of  Ptolemy  Euergetes  (d.  222  b.c.),  and  Philo- 
pator  (222-205).  The  tastes  of  the  former  were  scientific,  those 

1  O.  Schneider’s  Callimachea ,  ii  297 — 322;  Susemihl,  i  337 — 340. 

2  On  Callimachus,  see  Couat,  Podsie  Alex,  in — 284;  Christ,  §  349s ; 
Susemihl,  i  347 — 373  ;  and  Hiibner’s  Bibliographic ,  §  8. 

3  Porphyrion,  ap.  Susemihl,  i  405. 

4  Susemihl,  i  372 — 3. 


124 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


of  the  latter  literary  and  aesthetic.  Philopator  was  not  only  the 
author  of  a  tragedy,  but  also  honoured  the  memory  of  Homer  by 
building  a  temple  which  was  adorned  with  a  seated  statue  of  the 
poet,  surrounded  by  statues  of  the  cities  which  claimed  his  birth1. 
The  building  of  this  temple  has  been  regarded  as  an  indication  of 
a  change  of  attitude  towards  Homer.  While  Zenodotus  had 
allowed  his  personal  caprice  to  introduce  fanciful  alterations  into 
the  poet’s  text,  the  influence  of  Callimachus  and  Eratosthenes 
inspired  a  feeling  of  greater  reverence  for  Homer  as  the  Father  of 
Greek  poetry,  and  also  led  to  a  more  sober  treatment  of  his  text 
by  Aristophanes  and  Aristarchus,  as  well  as  to  a  careful  imitation 
of  his  manner  in  the  epic  poems  of  Rhianus2. 

Eratosthenes  bore  among  the  members  of  the  Museum  the 
singular  designation  of  pyra,  which  is  supposed  to  be  due  either 
to  some  physical  peculiarity  (such  as  the  bowed  back  of  old  age) 
or  (far  more  probably)  to  his  attaining  the  second  place  in  many 
lines  of  study3.  The  more  complimentary  designation  of  7revT- 
aO\o<s  implied  his  high  attainments  in  more  than  one  kind  of 
mental  gymnastics,  while  (like  the  second  sense  of  pyra)  it 
suggested  that  he  was  inferior  to  those  who  confined  themselves 
to  a  single  line  of  study4.  We  can  easily  imagine  each  of  the 
specialists  of  the  Museum  proudly  conscious  of  his  supremacy 
in  his  own  department,  and  enviously  depreciating  his  widely 
accomplished  and  versatile  colleague,  who  was  really  ‘good  all 
round  ’,  as  a  ‘  second-rate  ’  man.  But  it  is  only  in  his  minor  epics 
and  elegiacs  and  in  his  philosophical  dialogues  that  he  seems 
actually  to  have  deserved  a  place  lower  than  the  very  highest. 
In  other  respects  he  attained  the  foremost  rank  among  the  most 
versatile  scholars  of  all  time.  It  was  this  wide  and  varied  learning 
that  prompted  him  to  be  the  first  to  claim  the  honourable  title  of 
<£tAoAoyos  (p.  5).  He  was  the  first  to  treat  Geography  in  a 

1  Aelian,  Var.  Hist,  xiii  22. 

2  Usener  ap.  Susemihl,  ii  671. 

3  /3,  7,  5,  e,  £  d,  \  were  all  used  as  nicknames;  cp.  Photius,  Bid/,  p.  151, 
7 — 28,  and  Parthey,  Mus.  Alex.  p.  53  n.  In  Rostand’s  L'Aiglcn ,  1  iii,  we 
find  the  phrase,  je  fais  done  le  beta. 

4  In  [Plato]  Anterastae,  135  E,  ol  ir/vTadXoi  are  described  as  Sefrrepoi  as 
compared  with  the  best  runners  and  wrestlers.  Cp.  VvaKpos,  136  A,  and  7 repl 
ti\povs,  c.  34  §  1,  (of  Hypereides)  axe^'ov  viroucpos  ev  iratnv  a>s  6  x^vradXos. 


VIII.] 


ARISTOPHANES  OF  BYZANTIUM. 


125 


systematic  and  scientific  manner1.  He  also  wrote  on  Mathe¬ 
matics,  Astronomy  and  Chronology,  and,  in  connexion  with  the 
latter,  we  may  mention  his  work  on  the  Olympian  victors.  But 
the  masterpiece  of  his  many-sided  scholarship  was  a  work  in  at 
least  twelve  books,  the  first  of  its  kind,  on  the  Old  Attic  Comedy 
(7 repl  Tr/s  dp^atas  Kw/xwStas).  He  there  corrected  his  predecessors, 
Lycophron  and  Callimachus,  dealing  with  his  theme,  not  in  the 
order  of  chronology,  but  in  a  series  of  monographs  on  the  author¬ 
ship  and  date  of  the  plays,  and  on  points  of  textual  criticism, 
language  and  subject-matter.  He  was  less  strong  in  his  know¬ 
ledge  of  Athenian  antiquities2  than  in  that  of  the  Attic  dialect  in 
its  historical  development.  His  encyclopaedic  learning  was  not 
incompatible  with  poetic  taste.  In  opposition  to  the  prosaic 
opinion  that  the  battles  of  the  warriors  in  the  Iliad,  and  the 
wanderings  of  the  hero  of  the  Odyssey ,  were  a  precise  description 
of  actual  events,  he  maintained  that  the  aim  of  every  true  poet  is 
to  charm  the  imagination  and  not  to  instruct  the  intellect3.  ‘The 
scenes  of  the  wanderings  of  Odysseus  will  be  found  ’  (said  Erato¬ 
sthenes),  ‘when  you  find  the  cobbler  who  sewed  up  the  bag  of  the 
winds,  and  not  before  ’ 4. 

His  successor  as  Librarian  (c.  195  b.c.)  was  Aristophanes  of 
Byzantium  (e.  257 -c.  180),  the  pupil  of  Zenodotus, 

Callimachus  and  Eratosthenes.  He  was  the  first  0fByzantiumS 
of  the  Librarians  who  was  not  a  poet  as  well  as 
a  scholar;  but  in  Scholarship  he  holds,  with  Aristarchus,  one 
of  the  foremost  places  in  the  ancient  world.  He  reduced 
accentuation  and  punctuation  to  a  definite  system.  Some  sort 
of  punctuation  had  already  been  recognised  by  Aristotle  (p.  97). 
To  Aristophanes  are  attributed  the  use  of  the  mark  of  elision,  the 
short  stroke  ( v7roSiaoToA.>7 )  denoting  a  division  in  a  word  (such  as 
the  end  of  a  syllable),  the  hyphen  (^  below  the  word),  the  comma 
{yTroaTLyixrj),  the  colon  (fxecrr]  CTTiyfJLrj )  and  the  full-stop  ( TcXcta 
a-TLyfxrj) ;  also  the  indications  of  quantity,  for  ‘  short  ’  and  —  for 

1  Tozer’s  History  of  Ancient  Geography ,  p.  182.  2  p.  160  ult. 

3  Strabo,  p.  7,  71-007x77$  vois  crox^^TaL  y/vyayioyLas,  ov  didao KctXlas  (an 

opinion  criticised  by  Strabo). 

4  ib.  p.  24.  On  Eratosthenes,  cp.  Christ,  §  429s,  Susemihl,  i  409 — 428 ; 

and  Hiibner’s  Bibliographic,  §  9. 


126 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


‘  long  ’,  and  lastly  the  accents,  acute  grave  \  and  circumflex  A  or 
"T  These  accents  were  invented  with  a  view  to  preserving  the 
true  pronunciation,  which  was  being  corrupted  by  the  mixed 
populations  of  the  Greek  world.  Aristophanes  was  certainly  the 
originator  of  several  new  symbols  for  use  in  textual  criticism. 
To  the  short  horizontal  dash  called  the  o/3cAos  or  ‘spit’  — ,  which 
had  already  been  used  by  Zenodotus  to  denote  a  spurious  line,  he 
added  the  asterisk  $  to  draw  attention  to  passages  where  the 
sense  is  incomplete,  and,  in  lyric  poets,  to  mark  the  end  of  a 
metrical  k<2Xov  ;  also  the  Ktpavviov  T,  to  serve  as  a  collective 
obelus  where  several  consecutive  lines  are  deemed  to  be  spurious ; 
and,  lastly,  the  avricnyixa,  or  inverted  sigma,  D ,  to  draw  attention 
to  tautology2.  These  symbols  were  used  in  his  edition  of  the 
Iliad  and  Odyssey ,  which  marked  an  advance  on  that  of  Zeno¬ 
dotus  and  the  next  editor,  Rhianus.  He  agreed  with  Zenodotus 
in  obelising  many  lines,  but  he  also  reinstated,  and  obelised, 
many  which  had  been  entirely  omitted  by  his  predecessor.  Thus 
he  appears  to  have  had  some  regard  for  manuscript  evidence,  or 
at  least  for  the  duty  of  faithfully  recording  it,  even  if  he  dis¬ 
approved  it.  In  rejecting  certain  lines,  he  acted  on  independent 
grounds ;  in  this  he  showed  considerable  boldness,  but  was  often 
right.  A  good  example  of  his  acuteness  is  his  rejection  of  the 
conclusion  of  the  Odyssey ,  from  xxiii  296  to  the  end3.  Like 
Zenodotus,  however,  he  is  apt  to  judge  the  picture  of  manners 
presented  in  the  Homeric  poems  by  the  Alexandrian  standard, 
and  to  impute  either  impropriety,  or  lack  of  dignity,  to  phrases 
that  are  quite  in  keeping  with  the  primitive  simplicity  of  the 
heroic  age4. 

1  Pseudo- Arcadius,  pp.  186—190,  ap.  Nauck,  Aristophanis  Byz .  frag. 
(1848)  p.  12  f;  this  epitome  of  Herodian  has  been  ascribed  to  Theodosius 
(end  of  cent.  4,  Christ,  p.  83s3).  Cp.  Steinthal,  l.c.,  ii  79  n.  See  also  Blass 
on  Gr.  Palaeogr.  in  Iwan  Muller’s  Handbuch,  vol.  i,  C  §  6.  It  is  contended 
by  K.  E.  A.  Schmidt,  Beitrdge  zur  Gesch.  d.  Gr.  p.  571  f,  that  accents  and 
marks  of  punctuation  existed  before  Aristophanes.  The  account  in  Pseudo- 
Arcadius  may  possibly  have  been  fabricated  by  Jacob  Diassorinus  (cent.  16; 
see  Cohn  in  Pauly- Wissowa,  s.v.  Arkadios ).  Cp.  Lentz,  Herodiani  rell.  1  xxxvii. 

2  Nauck,  l.c.,  pp.  16 — 18;  Lehrs,  De  Aristarchi  Studiis  dJomericis,  p.  3323, 
note  240;  Reifferscheid,  Suetoni  Reliquiae ,  p.  137 — 144. 

3  Nauck,  l.  c.,  p.  32. 

4  Od.  xv  19,  82,  88;  xviii  281  etc.,  quoted  by  Cobet,  Misc.  Crit.  225 — 7. 


VIII.] 


ARISTOPHANES  OF  BYZANTIUM. 


127 


Besides  his  Homeric  labours,  he  edited  the  Theogony  of 
Hesiod,  and  the  lyric  poets,  Alcaeus,  Anacreon  and  Pindar.  In 
the  case  of  Pindar  he  produced  what  was  probably  the  first 
collected  edition.  He  divided  the  odes  into  sixteen  books,  eight 
on  divine,  and  eight  on  human  themes  (ek  Ocovs  and  ck  av- 
OpioTrovs).  Each  of  these  groups  had  further  subdivisions,  viz.  1 
(on  divine  themes),  hymns ,  paeans,  dithyrambs ,  prosodia,  parthenia 
(the  last  three  in  2  books  each) ;  11  (on  human  themes),  hypor- 
chemata  (in  2  books),  encomia ,  threnoi,  epmikia  (in  4  books).  A 
book  of  ceremonial  odes  was  added  to  1  as  an  appendix  to  the 
parthenia  (ra  Ke^coptcr/xcVa  t<Zv  irapO^vimv),  and  similarly,  at  the  end 
of  the  book  of  Nemean  odes,  which  was  probably  the  last  of  the 
four  books  of  epinikia ,  an  appendix  of  poems  unconnected  with 
Nemean  victories  (probably  under  the  name  of  ra  K€^w/3to-/xeV a 

TWV  N €p,eOVLKO)v)  \ 

The  general  outline  of  this  arrangement  assumes  that  the 
titles  of  the  various  books  in  the  poet’s  Life  in  the  Breslau  ms  are 
ultimately  due  to  Aristophanes.  Further,  there  is  reason  to 
believe  that  it  was  Aristophanes  who  divided  the  texts  of  the 
lyrical  poets  into  metrical  k<3 A.a2.  The  test  of  metre  was  thus 
easily  applied,  and  interpolations  detected3.  The  scholia  on 
Pindar,  unlike  those  on  Homer,  assume  a  fixed  text,  and  it  seems 
probable  that  this  text  was  practically  settled  by  Aristophanes4. 
In  the  lyric  poets,  his  erudition  enables  him  to  defend  readings 
which  Zenodotus  had  condemned.  Thus  ‘Anacreon  describes  a 
fawn  as  forsaken  Kepoiaar]^  .  .v-n-o  /x-arpos.  Zenodotus  wrote  ipo- 
Icrarrjs  (‘  lovely  ’)  on  the  ground  that  only  the  males  have  horns. 
Aristophanes  vindicated  the  text  by  showing  that  the  poets  ascribe 
horns  to  hinds  as  well  as  to  stags  ’5. 

1  Wilamowitz,  Eur.  Her .  i  139;  cp.  Thomas  Magister,  Vita  Pindari. 

2  Dion.  Hal.  De  Comp.  Verb.  22,  Kcb\a...ovK  oh  ’ ApurTopavrjs,  7}  tQiv  ixKkwv 
ns  /xerpiKuiv,  5ieK6<rfjLTi<Te  ras  (pdas  (of  Pindar) ;  cp.  ib.  26  (of  Simonides).  The 
MS  of  Bacchylides  is  written  in  Ku\a. 

3  Thus,  in  Pindar,  01.  ii  26,  <£iXet  dt  puv  IlaXXds  aid  is  followed  in  many 
MSS  by  (piktovo l  5e  Moitrai,  but  the  Scholiast  remarks: — adeTei  ’ ApurTocpav-rjs, 
TrepiTTebeLv  yap  avrb  <f>r)(n  xpos  <rds>  dvriOTpocpas. 

4  Wilamowitz,  /.  c.,  p.  142  f. 

5  Lehrs,  De  Aristar chi  Stud.  Horn.  p.  35 23,  quoted  in  Jebb’s  Homer,  p.  93. 
The  authority  for  the  views  of  Zenodotus  and  Aristophanes  on  this  point  is  the 


128 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


It  may  fairly  be  inferred  from  the  scholia  on  Euripides  and 
Aristophanes  that  he  prepared  a  recension  of  both  of  those 
poets.  It  is  probable  that  he  also  edited  Aeschylus  and 
Sophocles.  He  wrote  introductions  to  the  plays  of  all  the  three 
tragic  poets,  as  well  as  to  Aristophanes,  and  these  have  survived 
in  an  abridged  form  in  the  Arguments  {viroOiaetf)  prefixed  to 
their  plays1,  which  are  ultimately  founded  on  the  researches  of 
Aristotle  and  others  of  the  Peripatetic  School2.  Aristophanes 
also  divided  the  works  of  Plato  into  trilogies,  viz.  (i)  Republic , 
Timaeus ,  Critias ;  (2)  Soph  isles,  Politicus ,  Cratylus ;  (3)  Laws, 
Minos,  Epinomis ;  (4)  Theaetetus,  Euthyphron,  Apologia  ;  (5)  Crito , 
Phaedo ,  LetteiP ;  but  an  arrangement  which  separates  the  Crito 
and  Phaedo  from  the  Apologia  cannot  be  regarded  as  satisfactory. 

He  further  compiled  an  important  lexicographical  work  entitled 
A.e£eis4,  in  the  course  of  which  he  treated  of  words  supposed  to  be 
unknown  to  ancient  writers,  or  denoting  different  times  of  life, 
forms  of  salutation,  terms  of  relationship  or  civic  life  or  of  Attic 
or  Laconian  usage5.  The  work  showed  a  wide  knowledge  of 
dialects,  and  marked  a  new  epoch  by  tracing  every  word  to  its 
original  meaning,  thus  raising  ‘  glossography  ’  to  the  level  of 
lexicography6.  He  probably  wrote  a  work  on  Analogy  or  gram¬ 
matical  regularity,  as  contrasted  with  Anomaly  or  grammatical 
irregularity7.  In  this  work  he  apparently  endeavoured  to  de- 

scholium  of  Didymus  on  Pindar,  01.  iii  29  =  52,  XPV<T0K^PUV  %\a<f>ov  d^Ket-av 
(identified  as  a  reindeer  by  Professor  Ridgeway,  Early  Age  of  Greece,  i  360 — 3). 

1  Schneidewin  in  Abhdl.  d.  Gott.  Ges .  vi  3 — 37. 

2  Wilamowitz,  p.  144  f  (see  supra ,  p.  64  f). 

3  Diog.  Laert.  iii  61,  ap.  Nauck,  l.  c.,  p.  250;  cp.  Christ,  p.  429s,  and 
Platon.  Stud.  p.  5  f. 

4  A  fragment  of  this  work,  preserved  in  a  MS  of  Mount  Athos,  is  published 
in  Miller’s  Ale lan ges,  427 — 434  ;  cp.  Cohn,  in  Jahrb.  f.  Phil.,  Suppl.  xii  285, 
and  Fresenius,  De  \ti-ewv . . .excerptis  Byzantinis,  Wiesbaden,  1875. 

5  His  articles  on  "irpb^evoi,  idib^evoi,  dopb^euoL  and  t-evot  are  clearly  the 
source  of  the  3rd  scholium  on  Lucian’s  Phalaris,  ii  1. 

6  Nauck,  pp.  69 — 234  ;  Susemihl,  i  439  f. 

7  Varro,  L.  L.  x  68,  tertium  (analogiae)  genus  est  illud  duplex  quod  dixi, 
in  quo  et  res  et  voces  similiter  proportione  dicuntur,  ut  bonus  nialus,  boni  mali  ; 
de  quorum  analogia  et  Aristophanes  et  alii  scripserunt;  and  ix  12,  Aristophanes 
...qui  potius  in  quibusdam  veritatem  (=analogiam)  quam  consuetudinem 
secutus.  Cp.  Nauck,  pp.  264 — 271  ;  Steinthal,  ii  78 — 82  ;  Susemihl,  i  441. 


VIII.] 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  CANON. 


120 


termine  the  normal  rules  of  Greek  declension,  by  drawing 
attention  to  general  rules  of  regular  inflexion  rather  than  irregular 
and  exceptional  forms.  Among  his  other  works  was  a  great 
collection  of  proverbs,  an  article  on  a  phrase  in  Archilochus 
(axyvficvr)  <jKVTa\r]),  a  treatise  on  comic  masks,  and  a  list  of 
passages  borrowed  by  Menander1.  He  also  wrote  a  work  on  the 
7riVa/c€s  of  Callimachus2.  Lastly,  there  is  reason  to  believe  that 
he  drew  up  lists  of  the  ancient  poets  who  were  foremost  in  the 
various  forms  of  poetry.  This  is  inferred  from  a  passage  of 
Quintilian  (x  i  54)  stating  that  Apollonius  Rhodius  is  not  included 
in  the  ordo  a  grammaticis  datus ,  ‘because  Aristarchus  and  Aris¬ 
tophanes  did  not  include  any  of  their  own  contemporaries’.  In 
the  same  chapter  (§  59)  he  states  that  Archilochus  was  one  of  the 
three  iambic  poets  approved  by  Aristarchus;  elsewhere  (1  4,  3) 
he  describes  the  ancient  grammatici  not  only  as  obelising  lines 
and  rejecting  certain  works  as  spurious,  but  also  as  including 
certain  authors  in  their  list  and  entirely  excluding  others ;  and 
from  the  first  chapter  of  his  tenth  book  (§§  46-54)  we  infer  that 
the  four  leading  epic  poets  were  Homer,  Hesiod,  Antimachus  and 
Panyasis.  These  passages  are  almost  all  the  foundation  for  the 
discussions  on  the  Alexandrian  canon  from  the  time  of  Ruhnken3 
downwards.  Ruhnken  regarded  it  as  a  classified  list  of  writers  of 
prose ,  as  well  as  verse.  Bernhardy4  and  others  limited  it  to  poets 
alone,  while  the  canon  of  the  orators  has  since  been  regarded 
either  as  the  work  of  the  Pergamene  school  (c.  125  b.c.)5,  or  as 
due  to  Didymus,  or  still  more  probably  to  Caecilius  of  Calacte6, 

1  His  indication  of  Menander’s  debt  to  others  was  combined  with  a 
marked  admiration  for  the  poet  expressed  in  the  words,  w  M evavdpe  kcli  /3ie,  | 
irdrepos  dp ’  vp.Qv  irbrepov  aTrepupL-rjaaTO ;  Syrianus  in  Her?nogene7)i,  ii  23  Rabe. 

2  Athen.  408  F,  to  -n-pbs  roi>s  KaWt.pi.dxov  irivaKas ,  and  336  E,  avaypcupr) 
dpapL&Tiov. 

3  Hist.  Crit.  Orat.  Gr.,  pp.  94 — 100  =  Opusc.  i  385 — 392;  cp.  Wolf’s 
Kleine  Schriften,  ii  824. 

4  Gr.  Litt.  i4  185 — 8. 

5  Brzoska,  De  canone  decern  oratorum  Atticorum ,  1883. 

6  Suidas  mentions  among  his  works  xaPaKTVP€ s  Tuv  i  pTjrbpuv.  Cp.  Meier, 
Opusc.  i  120  f,  esp.  128;  P.  Hartmann,  De  canone  decei?i  oratorum ,  1891  ; 
Susemihl,  i  444,  521,  ii  484  and  esp.  694  f;  and  Kroehnert,  Canonesne 
poet  arum  scriptorum  artijicum  per  antiquit at  em  fuerunt  ?  1897;  also  Heyden- 
reich’s  Erlangen  Dissertation ,  1900. 


S. 


9 


130 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


the  friend  of  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus.  Between  the  age  of 
Aristarchus  and  that  of  Strabo,  Philetas  and  Callimachus  were 
added  to  the  canon  of  the  elegiac,  and  Apollonius,  Aratus, 
Theocritus  and  others,  to  that  of  the  epic  poets.  The  most 
important  document  bearing  on  the  Alexandrian  canon  is  a  list 
published  by  Montfaucon  from  a  ms  of  the  tenth  century  from 
Mount  Athos,  and  (with  some  variations)  by  Cramer  from  a  late 
ms  in  the  Bodleian.  The  following  are  the  names  included  in 
this  list,  as  revised  by  Usener1,  who  omits  late  additions.  The 
last  in  the  list  is  Polybius,  who  died  more  than  50  years  after 
Aristophanes  of  Byzantium. 

{Epic)  Poets  (5):  Homer,  Hesiod,  Peisander,  Panyasis,  Antimachus. 

lambic  Poets  { 3):  Semonides,  Archilochus,  Hipponax. 

Tragic  Poets  (5) :  Aeschylus,  Sophocles,  Euripides,  Ion,  Achaeus. 

Comic  Poets ,  Old  (7) :  Epicharmus,  Cratinus,  Eupolis,  Aristophanes, 
Pherecrates,  Crates,  Plato.  Middle  (2):  Antiphanes,  Alexis.  New  (5): 
Menander,  Philippides,  Diphilus,  Philemon,  Apollodorus. 

Elegiac  Poets  (4) :  Callinus,  Mimnermus,  Philetas,  Callimachus. 

Lyric  Poets  (9) :  Aleman,  Alcaeus,  Sappho,  Stesichorus,  Pindar,  Bacchy- 
lides,  Ibycus,  Anacreon,  Simonides. 

Orators  (10):  Demosthenes,  Lysias,  Hypereides,  Isocrates,  Aeschines, 
Lycurgus,  Isaeus,  Antiphon,  Andocides,  Deinarchus2. 

Historians  (10):  Thucydides,  Herodotus,  Xenophon,  Philistus,  Theo- 
pompus,  Ephorus,  Anaximenes,  Callisthenes,  Hellanicus,  Polybius3. 

Aristophanes  of  Byzantium  was  probably  nearly  60  when  he 

,  .  ,  counted  among  his  pupils  his  successor  Aristarchus 

of  Samothrace  (c.  217-5 — 145-3  B-c*)>  who  lived  in 
Alexandria  under  Ptolemy  Philometor  (181-146),  and,  on  the 
murder  of  his  pupil  Philopator  Neos  and  the  accession  of 
Euergetes  II  (146),  fled  to  Cyprus,  where  he  died  soon  after. 
His  continuous  commentaries  (v7rofxvy/xaTa)  filled  no  less  than 
800  volumes,  partly  as  notes  for  lectures,  partly  in  finished  form. 
These  were  valued  less  highly  than  his  critical  treatises  (avyypdfi- 

1  Dion.  Hal.  de  Imitatione,  p.  130. 

2  Deinarchus,  omitted  by  Usener,  is  restored  by  Kroehnert. 

3  On  the  Canon,  see  Steffen,  De  canone  qui  dicitur  Aristophanis  et 
Aristarchi,  1876;  Kroehnert,  /.  c.  (who  rejects  all  ‘  canons’  except  that  of  the 
Orators) ;  and  Susemihl,  i  444 — 7  ;  and  on  Aristophanes  in  general,  ib.  i  428 — 
448;  Christ,  §  435s ;  Cohn  s.v.  in  Pauly- Wissowa;  and  Hiibner’s  Bibliogra¬ 
phic,  §  11. 


VIII.] 


ARISTARCHUS. 


131 

fiara)  on  such  subjects  as  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey ,  on  the  naval 
camp  of  the  Achaeans,  and  on  Philetas  and  on  Xenon  (one  of  the 
earliest  of  the  chorizontes ,  who  ascribed  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey 
to  different  poets).  As  a  commentator  he  avoided  the  display  of 
irrelevant  erudition,  while  he  insisted  that  each  author  was  his 
own  best  interpreter.  He  also  placed  the  study  of  grammar  on  a 
sound  basis ;  he  was  among  the  earliest  of  the  grammarians  who 
definitely  recognised  eight  parts  of  speech,  Noun,  Verb,  Participle, 
Pronoun,  Article,  Adverb,  Preposition  and  Conjunction1.  As  a 
grammarian  he  maintained  the  principle  of  Analogy,  as  opposed 
to  that  of  Anomaly.  He  produced  recensions  of  Alcaeus, 
Anacreon  and  Pindar;  commentaries  on  the  Lycurgus  of  Aes¬ 
chylus,  and  on  Sophocles  and  Aristophanes ;  and  recensions,  as 
well  as  commentaries,  in  the  case  of  Archilochus  and  Hesiod. 
He  had  a  profound  knowledge  of  Homeric  vocabulary,  and  was 
the  author  of  two  recensions  of  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey,  with 
critical  and  explanatory  symbols  in  the  margin  of  each.  These 
symbols  were  six  in  number:  (1)  the  obelus  —  to  denote  a  spurious 
line,  already  used  by  Zenodotus  and  Aristophanes  (p.  126); 
(2)  the  diple  (8t.7rA.17)  >,  denoting  anything  notable  either  in 
language  or  matter ;  (3)  the  dotted  diple  (SnrA.?/  Tripua-nypLlvy])  >, 
drawing  attention  to  a  verse  in  which  the  text  of  Aristarchus 
differed  from  that  of  Zenodotus ;  (4)  the  asterisk  (ao-rcpio-Kos)  Jjc- , 
marking  a  verse  wrongly  repeated  elsewhere ;  (5)  the  stigme  or 
dot  ((TTLyp-tj),  used  by  itself  as  a  mark  of  suspected  spuriousness, 
.and  also  in  conjunction  with  (6)  the  antisigma  D,  in  a  sense 
differing  from  that  of  Aristophanes,  to  denote  lines  in  which  the 
order  had  been  disturbed,  the  dots  indicating  the  lines  which 
ought  immediately  to  follow  the  line  marked  with  the  antisigma 
{cp.  p.  140)2. 

1  ovo/ia,  prjfw.,  /xeroxVi  dvTUW/iLa,  dpdpov,  eirippruxa ,  7rp60€ais,  abvdea/ios 
(ovo/xa  included  the  Adjective).  Quint,  i  4,  20,  alii  ex  idoneis...auctoribus 
octo  partes  secuti  sunt,  ut  Aristarchus. 

2  Lehrs  and  Reifferscheid,  quoted  on  p.  126;  Ludwich,  Aristarchs 
Homerische  Textkritik ,  pp.  19 — 22  ;  and  Jebb’s  Homer ,  p.  94.  Similar  sym¬ 
bols  were  used  in  an  edition  of  Plato  (Diog.  Laert.  iii  66)  sometimes  identified 
with  that  of  Aristophanes  of  Byzantium,  mentioned  on  p.  128  (Gomperz,  Plat. 
Aufsatze,  ii).  On  Aristarchus  see  also  Wilamowitz,  Eiir.  Her.  p.  1381; 
P.  Cauer’s  Grundfragen,  11 — 35;  Susemihl,  i  451 — 463;  Cohn  s.v.  in  Pauly- 
Wissowa;  and  Hiibner’s  Bibliograpkie ,  §  12. 


9—2 


132 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


In  his  criticisms  on  Homer  three  points  have  been  noticed, 
(i)  His  careful  study  of  Homeric  language.  Thus  he  observes 
that  in  Homer  coSe  never  means  £  here  ’  or  ‘  hither  but  always 
‘  thus  ’ ;  that  /3a\\eiv  is  used  of  missiles,  ovra&Lv  of  wounding  at 
close  quarters ;  <£o/Jos  of  £  flight  ’,  and  7tovo<s  of  the  £  stress  ’  of 
battle.  (2)  His  strong  reliance  on  manuscript  authority ,  and,  in 
cases  of  conflicting  readings,  on  the  poet’s  usage.  In  contrast 
with  Zenodotus,  he  abstained  from  merely  conjectural  readings, 
and  was  even  censured  by  later  critics  for  excess  of  caution. 
(3)  His  comments  on  the  subject-matter ,  comparing  the  Homeric 
versions  of  myths  with  those  in  other  writers,  and  noticing  charac¬ 
teristic  points  of  Homeric  civilisation.  His  interest  in  topography 
led  him  to  make  a  plan  of  the  Trojan  and  the  Greek  camp ;  and 
to  notice  that  yApyos  IleXacrytKov  denotes  Thessaly,  and  yApyo? 
'kydlKov  the  Peloponnesus  \  As  a  critic  he  is  more  sober  and 
judicious  than  Zenodotus  and  Aristophanes,  but  he  sometimes 
lapses,  like  his  predecessors,  into  an  over-fondness  for  finding 
£  improprieties  ’  of  expression  in  the  plain  and  unaffected  style  of 
Homer2. 

The  Homeric  mss  accessible  to  Aristarchus  mainly  fall  into 
two  groups,  those  bearing  the  names  of  (1)  persons ,  or  (2)  places. 
The  former  are  known  as  at  Kar’  avSpa  (ckSoo-cis)  ;  the  latter  as  at 
Kara  7roX€ts,  or  at  an o  (or  e/c,  or  Sia)  rtov  7roA.e <dv,  or  at  rwv  nokaov. 
The  former  are  often  cited  by  the  name  of  the  editor : — Anti- 
machus,  Zenodotus,  Rhianus,  Sosigenes,  Philemon,  Aristophanes ; 
the  latter,  by  the  names  of  the  places  from  which  they  came : — 
Massilia,  Chios,  Argos,  Sinope,  Cyprus,  Crete  and  Aeolis;  but 
the  Cretan  edition  was  probably  not  used  by  Aristarchus,  and  the 
Aeolian  is  cited  only  for  some  variants  in  the  Odyssey.  Besides 
these  groups  there  were  other  texts  denoted  as  £  common  ’  or 
£  popular  ’  (Kotvat,  Srj/xioSeo;),  representing  the  £  vulgate  ’  of  the 
day,  described  as  £  the  more  careless  ’  (ilKaiorepai)  as  contrasted 
with  the  ‘more  accurate’  or  ‘scholarly’  (xapicVrcpai)3. 

1  Jebb’s  Homer ,  p.  94  f.  2  Cobet,  Misc.  Crit.  229. 

3  La  Roche,  Horn.  Textkritik ,  p.  45  f ;  Ludwich,  l.  c.,  i  3 — 16;  Jebb’s 
Homer ,  p.  91  f;  and  Mr  T.  W.  Allen  in  Class.  Rev.  1901,  pp.  241 — 6,  The 
eccentric  editions  and  Aristarchus.  On  the  history  of  the  Homeric  poems  in 
the  Alexandrian  age  cp.  Mr  D.  B.  Monro’s  ed.  of  Odyssey  xiii — xiv,  pp.  418 — 
454* 


VIII.] 


THE  TEXT  OF  HOMER. 


133 


The  extant  evidence  for  the  text  of  Homer  is  to  be  found 
mainly  in  the  two  mss  in  Venice,  A  and  B,  belonging  to  the  10th 
and  nth  century  respectively,  together  with  statements  in  the 
scholia  in  the  earlier  of  these  mss,  and  quotations  in  ancient 
authors.  From  these  materials  what  may  be  called  the  ‘  vulgate  ’ 
text  of  Homer  has  been  formed,  and  down  to  the  year  1891  the 
evidence  of  Homeric  papyri ,  going  back  as  far  as  the  Christian 
era,  was  in  agreement  with  this  text.  In  contrast  with  this  text 
were  the  readings  of  the  Alexandrian  critics,  and  certain  of  the 
quotations  in  ancient  authors.  In  1891  fragments  of  an  earlier 
papyrus  of  Iliad  xi  502-537,  found  by  Mr  Flinders  Petrie  among 
dated  documents  belonging  to  260-224  b.c.  and  published  by 
Professor  Mahaffy,  supplied  indications  of  a  text  differing  from 
the  vulgate  and  including  four  more  lines  in  a  passage  consisting 
of  39  lines.  Similar  phenomena  were  noticed  in  the  fragment 
published  by  M.  Nicole  at  Geneva  in  1894,  and  by  Messrs 
Grenfell  and  Hunt  in  1897.  Two  suggestions  arose  from  these 
discoveries.  The  first  was  that  these  Ptolemaic  papyri  repre¬ 
sented  a  prolix  prae-Alexandrian  text,  before  it  was  cut  down 
into  the  current  text  by  the  criticisms  of  Zenodotus,  Aristophanes 
and  Aristarchus.  But  this  suggestion  is  opposed  to  the  evidence 
of  the  scholia ,  which  record  the  readings  preferred  by  the 
Alexandrian  critics  and  show  that  the  Alexandrian  school  had 
hardly  any  effect  on  the  traditional  text.  The  second  suggestion 
was  that  the  remarkable  additions  to  the  Homeric  text  found  in 
nearly  all  the  few  Ptolemaic  papyri  proved  that  the  vulgar  text  of 
the  present  day  could  not  have  been  in  existence  in  the  Ptolemaic 
times,  but  must  have  come  into  existence  later.  But  (1)  the 
statements  in  the  scholia  relating  to  the  Alexandrian  critics, 
Didymus  and  Aristonicus,  who  distinguish  between  the  editions  of 
their  Alexandrian  predecessors,  especially  those  of  Aristarchus, 
and  certain  other  editions,  known  as  ‘common’  or  ‘popular’, 
show  that  a  vulgar  text  of  some  sort  or  other  was  in  existence  in 
Alexandrian  times.  (2)  The  evidence  of  quotations  in  prae- 
Alexandrian  writers  shows  that  their  text  of  Homer  was  sub¬ 
stantially  the  same  as  ours.  152  portions  of  the  Homeric  text 
are  quoted  by  29  writers  from  Herodotus  downwards,  and  the 
480  lines  (or  thereabout)  thus  quoted  do  not  include  more  than 


134 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


9  to  i  i  lines  in  addition  to  the  ordinary  text.  It  may  thus  be 
inferred  that  the  ordinary  Homeric  text  preceded  the  Alexandrian 
age  and  that  it  existed  as  early  as  the  fifth  century  b.c.  The 
Ptolemaic  papyri  may  therefore  be  regarded  simply  as  a  few  stray 
examples  of  eccentric  texts  of  Homer,  and  texts  no  less  eccentric 
may  have  been  not  unknown  to  the  author  of  the  Second  Alci- 
biades\  and  to  Aeschines  and  Plutarch,  who  occasionally  quote 
from  a  text  including  lines  not  found  in  the  ordinary  text  of 
Homer2. 

Notwithstanding  the  very  slight  impression  which  Aristarchus 
produced  on  the  current  text  of  Homer,  later  writers  had  a 
profound  respect  for  his  authority  as  a  critic.  In  the  Venice  ms 
(A)  of  Homer  the  scholiast  on  II.  ii  316  knows  that  the  accent  of 
Trrcpvyos  is  normally  proparoxytone,  but  accepts  the  paroxytone 
7n-€pvyos  solely  on  the  authority  of  Aristarchus3;  and  on  II.  iv 
235  he  follows  Aristarchus  in  preference  to  Hermappias,  ‘even 
although  the  latter  appears  to  be  in  the  right’4.  His  power  of 
critical  divination  is  recognised  by  Panaetius,  who  calls  him  a 
‘diviner’5;  and  with  Cicero  (ad  Att.  i  14,  3)  and  Horace  (A.  P. 
450)  his  name  is  a  synonym  for  a  great  critic,  and  it  has  so 

1  149  D.  ‘The  fact  that  this  spurious  quotation  is  found  in  a  spurious 
Platonic  dialogue  only  emphasizes  the  fact  that  to  the  real  Plato  Homer  is  our 
Homer,  neither  more  nor  less  ’  (Leaf2  on  II.  viii  548  f). 

2  See  esp.  Ludwich,  Die  Homer -vulgata  als  voralexandrinische  erwiesen , 
1898,  rev.  by  Mr  T.  W.  Allen  in  Class.  Rev.  1899,  pp.  39 — 41.  In  the  same 
volume,  p.  334  f,  Mr  Allen  shows  that  the  modern  Homeric  text  is  identical 
with  the  ancient  vulgate  to  the  extent  of  about  60  per  cent,  of  the  passages 
where  its  readings  are  noticed,  and  further  -that  in  about  20  per  cent,  the 
ancient  vulgate  was  in  conflict  with  another  text,  and  in  about  20  per  cent,  had 
been  dislodged  by  that  text.  On  p.  429  f  he  shows  that,  of  the  known 
readings  of  Aristarchus  (664  in  number),  between  one-fifth  and  one-sixth  have 
left  no  trace  whatever  in  our  mss,  and  only  one-tenth  are  found  in  all  MSS 
hitherto  collated.  In  Class.  Rev.  1900,  p.  242  f,  he  shows  that  of  the  known 
readings  of  Zenodotus  (385  in  number)  259  survive  in  none  of  our  mss,  and 
the  rest  in  all  or  some,  only  4  being  found  in  all;  also  that  of  the  readings 
peculiar  to  Aristophanes  of  Byzantium  (81),  46  are  found  in  none  of  our  mss, 
and  the  rest  in  some  or  all,  only  two  being  found  in  all. 

3  ire  id 6 /me 6  a  avrip  w?  Travv  apiary  ypap./xaTiK(p. 

4  el  Kal  SoKei  aXTjdeOeiv.  This  grammarian  is  also  quoted  on  xi  326,  xiii 
137,  but  is  otherwise  unknown. 

5  Athen.  634  c. 


VIII. j  CALLISTRATUS.  HERMIPPUS.  APOLLODORUS.  1 35 


remained  ever  since.  He  was  the  founder  of  scientific  Scholar¬ 
ship.  He  was  also  the  head  of  a  School,  and  Apollodorus, 
Ammonius  and  Dionysius  Thrax  were  among  the  most  famous  of 
his  forty  pupils.  Even  the  king  (Euergetes  II),  whose  accession 
in  146  was  the  signal  for  a  persecution  of  his  Hellenic  subjects 
from  which  men  of  letters,  like  Aristarchus,  were  not  exempt, 
discussed  points  of  Homeric  criticism  with  his  courtiers  far  into 
the  night,  and  himself  proposed  an  ingenious  emendation  of  a 
line  in  the  Odyssey  (v  7  2)1. 

Next  to  Aristarchus,  the  most  important  pupil  of  Aristophanes 
was  Callistratus,  whose  admiration  for  his  master 

Callistratus 

led  to  a  bitter  feud  with  Aristarchus.  He  wrote 
criticisms  on  the  passages  in  Homer  attacked  by  the  latter,  as 
well  as  a  commentary  on  the  Iliad ,  and  on  Pindar,  Sophocles, 
Euripides  and  Aristophanes2. 

Before  turning  to  the  pupils  of  Aristarchus,  we  must  mention 
a  pupil  of  Callimachus,  Hermippus  of  Smyrna,  the 
author  of  an  extensive  biographical  and  biblio¬ 
graphical  work,  connected  with  his  master’s  Pinakes  and  including 
lives  of  literary  celebrities  and  lists  of  their  writings,  so  far  as  they 
were  preserved  in  the  Alexandrian  Library.  The  work  is  cited 
under  its  various  subdivisions,  On  the  Legislators,  On  the  Seven 
Wise  Men,  On  Pythagoras,  Gorgias,  Isocrates,  Aristotle  and 
Chrysippus  (d.  204  b.c.).  It  was  one  of  the  chief  authorities 
followed  by  Diogenes  Laertius,  and  by  Plutarch  in  his  Lives  of 
Lycurgus,  Solon  and  Demosthenes3. 

Apollodorus  of  Athens  (fl.  144  b.c.)  was  a  pupil  of  Aris¬ 
tarchus  in  Alexandria,  which  he  left  c.  146  b.c. 

After  144  b.c.  he  dedicated  to  Attalus  II  of 
Pergamon  a  great  work  on  Chronology,  beginning  with  the 
fall  of  Troy  and  ending  with  the  above  date.  The  work  was 


Hermippus 


Apollodorus 


1  Plut.  de  adul.  17,  60  A,  IlToXe/icdy  (piXopadeiv  Sokovvtl  irepi  yXuTTrjs  Kal 
(TtlxiSlov  Kal  laropias  pi.ax6p.evoi  p^XP1  A Beroev  vvktQv  airtreivov.  Athen.  61  C, 
IlroX.  6  Seurepos  ~EvepyirT]s  Trap '  'Opr/pip  ajjioi  ypacpeiv,  ‘  ap<pl  8e  XeipQve s 
paXaKol  alov  tj5£  aeXlvov.’  a  La  (a  marsh  plant)  yap  pera  aeXlvov  (ptieoda  t  aXXcit, 
PV  ta  (Susemihl,  i  9). 

2  R.  Schmidt,  De  Callistrato  Aristophaneo ,  reprinted  with  Nauck,  Aristoph. 

Byz. ;  cp.  Susemihl,  i  449  f.  ^ 

3  Christ,  §  432s;  Susemihl,  i  492 — 5. 


136 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  AGE 


[CHAP. 


afterwards  brought  down  to  119  b.c.  It  was  written  in  comic 
trimeters,  possibly  as  an  aid  to  the  memory ;  it  unfortunately 
superseded  the  probably  far  greater  chronological  work  of  Erato¬ 
sthenes,  and  took  its  place  as  a  great  storehouse  of  chronological 
facts.  Apollodorus  is  named  by  Cicero  (ad  Att.  xii  23,  2)  as  likely 
to  throw  light  on  the  date  of  an  Epicurean  philosopher  and  of 
certain  politicians  at  Athens.  Where  the  exact  date  of  the  birth 
and  death  of  any  personage  was  unknown,  he  used  some  im¬ 
portant  date  in  that  personage’s  active  life  to  determine  the  time 
at  which  he  flourished;  this  was  called  his  aKpyj  and  was  regarded 
as  corresponding  approximately  to  the  age  of  40.  Following  in 
the  track  of  Eratosthenes  and  of  Demetrius  of  Scepsis,  he  wrote 
a  commentary  in  12  books  on  the  Homeric  catalogue  of  ships, 
often  quoted  by  Strabo ;  also  on  Sophron  and  Epicharmus,  and 
on  Etymology,  and  further  a  geographical  compendium  in  iambic 
verse,  and  an  important  work  in  24  books  on  the  Religion  of 
Greece  (^cpl  6ewv)\  Some  of  the  numerous  fragments  of  this 
work  are  inconsistent  with  the  corresponding  passages  in  the 
mythological  Bibliotheca,  which  bears  the  name  of  the  same 
author.  Between  100  and  55  b.c.  a  handbook  of  mythology  was 
compiled,  which  became  the  source  from  which  Diodorus,  Hyginus 
and  Pausanias  drew  their  information  on  this  subject ;  this  was 
also  the  source  of  the  extant  Bibliotheca  (possibly  of  the  time  of 
Hadrian)  bearing  the  name  of  Apollodorus1 2. 

Aristarchus  was  succeeded  by  his  pupil  Ammonius,  who 
devoted  himself  mainly  to  the  exposition  and  the 

Ammonius 

defence  of  his  masters  recensions  of  Homer.  He 
wrote  ‘  on  the  absence  of  more  than  two  editions  of  the  Homeric 
recension  of  Aristarchus  ’,  ‘  on  Plato’s  debt  to  Homer  ’,  and  also 
4  on  Prosody  ’,  probably  in  the  course  of  his  criticisms  on  Homer. 
He  was  one  of  the  main  authorities  followed  by  Didymus  in  his 
work  on  the  recension  of  Homer  by  Aristarchus.  Lastly,  he 
wrote  a  commentary  on  Pindar,  in  which  he  appears  to  have 
followed  in  his  master’s  footsteps3. 

1  Christ,  §  6083;  Susemihl,  ii  33 — 44;  Schwarz  in  Pauly- Wissowa,  s.v. 
p.  2857 — 75;  and  Hiibner’s  Bibliographies  §  14,  p.  21. 

2  Christ,  §  5 76s ;  Susemihl,  ii  50  f ;  cp.  Schwarz,  /.  c.,  p.  2875 — 86. 

3  Susemihl,  ii  153;  Pauly-Wissowa,  s.v.  p.  1865. 


VIII.] 


AMMONIUS.  DIONYSIUS  THRAX. 


137 


Another  eminent  pupil  of  Aristarchus  was  Dionysius  Thrax 
(born  c.  166  b.c.).  In  his  admiration  for  his 
master’s  apparently  perfect  familiarity  with  all  the  Thra°xnyS1US 
tragedies  in  existence,  he  painted  his  master’s 
portrait  with  a  figure  representing  Tragedy  (possibly  on  a  breast¬ 
plate)  near  his  heart1.  He  afterwards  taught  in  Rhodes,  where  he 
made  a  model  of  Nestor’s  cup  (II.  xi  632-5),  the  material  for 
which  was  provided  by  means  of  a  subscription  on  the  part  of  his 
pupils.  But  his  main  title  to  fame  is  that  he  was  the  author  of 
the  earliest  Greek  Grammar.  This  is  still  extant.  It  is  a  work 
of  less  than  16  printed  pages2.  It  begins  by  defining  Grammar 
(p.  8  supra),  and  Stating  its  parts  (di/ayvoxris,  i£r)yr](Tisf  yXuxrawv 
Kcu  lcTTOf)LU)v  dn-oSotris,  eTvpLoXoyla,  dvaAoytas  £i<\oyi(rp.6<;,  /cpicris 
TroLrjfiaTiDv).  It  next  deals  with  Accentuation  (tovo s),  Punctuation 
((rrty /07),  Letters  and  Syllables  (crrot^cta  *ai  o-uAA a/3at),  and,  after 
enumerating  the  Parts  of  Speech  (ovop. a,  pyp.a,  p.ero)(rj,  apOpov, 
avTwvvpda,  irpoOecn^ ,  iTTLpprjp.a ,  arvv$€crp.o<s),  ends  with  Declension 
and  Conjugation,  without  including  either  Syntax  or  precepts  on 
Style.  In  this  Grammar  ovop a  includes  not  only  the  Noun,  but 
also  the  Adjective  and  the  Demonstrative  and  Interrogative 
Pronouns ;  and  apOpov ,  not  only  the  Article  but  also  the  Relative 
Pronoun;  while  avToswpla  (‘Pronoun’)  is  limited  to  the  Personal 
and  Possessive  Pronouns3.  It  remained  the  standard  work  on 
grammar  for  at  least  13  centuries.  It  was  known  to  the  great 
grammarians  of  the  imperial  age,  Apollonius  and  Herodian. 
Among  its  many  commentators  may  be  mentioned  Choeroboscus 
(end  of  cent.  6),  Stephanus  (early  in  cent.  7),  and  (not  much 
later)  Heliodorus  and  Melampus4.  It  became  the  source  of  the 
grammatical  catechisms  (epwr^/xara)  of  the  Byzantine  age,  e.g. 
that  of  Moschopulos,  and  also  of  the  manuals  introduced  into 
Italy  during  the  Renaissance  by  Byzantine  refugees  such  as 
Chrysoloras,  Gaza,  Constantine  Lascaris  and  Chalcondylas.  The 

1  Aristarchus,  however,  was  sometimes  criticised  severely  by  his  pupil,  as 
appears  from  the  scholia  on  II.  ii  262,  xiii  103. 

2  Bekker’s  Anecdota  Gr.  (1816),  pp.629 — 643;  Engl,  trans.  by  T.  Davidson, 
1874:  the  best  text  is  that  of  Uhlig,  1883.  It  was  apparently  written  at 
Rhodes,  under  Stoic  influence. 

3  Classen,  De  Gram.  Gr.  prim.,  p.  85. 

4  Susemihl,  ii  173  note.  Cp.  A.  Hilgard’s  ed.  of  the  Scholia ,  1901. 


138 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Greek  terms  of  this  treatise  thus  survived  for  many  centuries ; 
e.g.  ovo|ia,  ycVo?,  apLO/xos,  k\l(T€l<:  (‘Declensions’),  tt-twctcis  (‘Cases’), 

TT-TWCriS  OVOp.O.O’TLKTj  KCLl  €V0€ Ld  (Nom.),  y€VLKrj  (Gen.),  SoTlKTJ  (Dat.), 

alTLaTLKtj  (Acc.),  K\rjTLKrj  (Voc.);  prjp.a,  crv^vyiac  (‘Conjugations’), 
Sia#€crei9  (‘Voices’),  c^kA-io-ci?  (‘Moods’),  xpovoi  (‘Tenses’), 
7rpo(Ta)7ra  (‘Persons’).  With  a  strict  adherence  to  Attic  usage 
the  Active  and  Passive  Voices  are  here  exemplified  by  tvtttoj  and 
Tv7rT0p.au,  the  Numbers  by  tv7ttq),  tvtttztov  and  Tvinopav,  and  the 
Persons  (in  inferior  mss)  by  tvtttu),  ruirms,  tvttth.  It  was  ap¬ 
parently  in  the  Canons  of  the  late  Alexandrian  grammarian 
Theodosius  (probably  a  friend  of  Synesius  of  Cyrene,y£  400  a.d.), 
that  this  verb  appeared  for  the  first  time  with  the  complete 
paradigm  of  all  its  imaginary  moods  and  tenses.  Before  the  end 
of  the  fifth  century  this  paradigm  was  included  in  the  Armenian 
and  Syriac  versions  of  the  supplements  to  Dionysius  Thrax 1 ; 
and,  through  the  Manuals  of  the  Renaissance,  it  has  found  its 
way  into  modern  Grammars,  although,  as  is  now  well  known,  the 
Present  and  Imperfect,  Active  and  Passive,  were  the  only  tenses 
actually  used  in  Attic  prose  of  the  Athenian  age2. 

Among  the  Romans,  Varro  was  indebted  to  the  Grammar  of 
Dionysius  Thrax  for  his  definition  of  the  ‘  Persons  ’  of  the  Verb, 
and  for  that  of  Grammar  itself.  It  was  also  the  authority  followed 
by  Suetonius,  by  Remmius  Palaemon  (the  teacher  of  Quintilian), 
and  (probably  at  second  hand)  by  later  Roman  grammarians, 
such  as  Donatus,  Diomedes,  Charisius  and  Dositheus.  The 
original  text  was  known  to  Priscian. 

Dionysius  Thrax  was  also  the  writer  of  two  or  three  rhetorical 
works,  together  with  a  critique  on  Crates,  and  commentaries  on 
the  Works  and  Days  of  Hesiod,  and  on  the  Odyssey  and  the 
Iliad.  In  this  last  he  followed  Aristarchus  in  actually  regarding 
Homer  as  a  native  of  Athens3. 

It  is  sometimes  stated  that  Dionysius  Thrax  taught  in  Rome 
as  well  as  in  Rhodes.  This  arises  from  a  confusion 
between  Dionysius  and  his  pupil,  Tyrannion  the 

1  ed.  Uhlig,  pp.  liii,  49,  51. 

2  Cp.  Dem.  Select  Private  Orations ,  ii,  Excursus  to  Speech  against  Conon. 

a  Christ,  §  4394;  Susemihl,  ii  168 — 175;  and  Hiibner’s  Bibliographic,  §  14, 

p.  10. 


VIII.] 


TYRANNION.  DIDYMUS. 


139 


elder,  who  was  taken  to  Rome  by  Lucullus  and  was  a  teacher 
there  in  the  time  of  Pompey  the  Great.  Tyrannion  was  among 
the  first  to  recognise  the  value  of  the  Aristotelian  mss  transported 
to  Rome  by  Sulla  in  86  b.c.  (p.  85).  His  pupil,  Tyrannion  the 
younger,  who  reached  Rome  as  a  prisoner  and  owed  his  freedom 
to  Terentia,  the  wife  of  Cicero,  wrote  on  Homeric  prosody  and 
on  the  parts  of  speech,  and  on  the  connexion  between  the  Greek 
and  Latin  languages1. 

The  most  versatile  and  industrious  of  all  the  successors  of 
Aristarchus  was  Didymus  (c.  6?  b.c.-io  a.d.),  who 

J  J  n  Didymus 

taught  at  Alexandria,  and  perhaps  also  in  Rome2. 

To  his  prodigious  industry  he  owed  the  notable  name  of  Chalc- 
enterus a.  He  is  said  to  have  written  between  3500  and  4000 
books,  and  we  are  not  surprised  to  learn  that  he  sometimes  forgot 
in  one  book  what  he  had  himself  written  in  another4.  He  is 
described  by  Macrobius  (v  18)  as  grammaticorum  facile  eru- 
ditissimus  omniumque  quique  sint  quique  fuerint  instructissimus. 
His  lexicographical  labours  included  treatises  on  ‘  metaphors  on 
‘  words  of  doubtful  meaning  ’,  on  ‘  names  corrupted  by  change  of 
spelling  ’,  and  two  vast  works  on  the  language  of  Comedy,  and  on 
the  language  of  Tragedy  (A.e|eis  kw/xi/ccu  and  TpaytKal).  The  last 
two  (and  especially  the  second  of  these)  may  be  regarded  as  the 
ultimate  source  of  most  of  the  lexicographical  learning  which  has 
come  down  to  us  in  Athenaeus  and  the  scholia,  and  in  the 
lexicons  of  Hesychius  and  Photius.  The  28th  book  of  the 
work  on  the  language  of  Tragedy  is  cited  by  Harpocration 5 ;  and 
one  of  the  longer  fragments  is  preserved  by  Macrobius fi.  Turning 
to  his  labours  as  an  editor,  textual  critic  and  commentator,  we 
have  first  to  mention  his  elaborate  attempt  to  restore  the  Homeric 
recension  of  Aristarchus  in  his  work  rrepl  rrjs  'ApLarrapx^ov  Stop- 
Qukt coo?.  Aristarchus  had  produced  two  recensions  of  the  text ; 
but  both  were  lost,  and  Didymus  had  to  restore  their  readings 

1  Christ,  §  442s. 

2  Susemihl,  ii  19.5,  note  264;  and  esp.  Wilamowitz,  Eur.  Her.  157 — 1 68. 

3  XaXfc&repos,  cp.  Amm.  Marc,  xxii  16,  16,  multiplicis  scientiae  copia 
memorabilis. 

4  Quint,  i  8,  19,  cp.  Athen.  139  c. 

5  s.v.  %rjpa\oi<t>eiv . 

6  v  18  §§  9,  12,  on  the  use  of  ’AxeXcpos  for  water  in  general. 


140 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


with  the  help  of  transcripts  together  with  such  evidence  as  could 
be  derived  from  the  critical  monographs  and  the  continuous 
commentaries  of  Aristarchus.  At  the  end  of  each  book  of  the 
Iliad  in  the  Venice  ms  of  Homer  known  as  A,  Didymus  is 
mentioned,  together  with  his  younger  contemporary,  Aristonicus, 
and  Herodian,  the  author  of  a  treatise  on  the  prosody  and 
accentuation  of  the  Iliad  (c.  160  a.d.),  and  Nicanor,  the  writer 
on  Homeric  punctuation  (< c .  130  a.d.),  as  one  of  the  sources  of 
the  scholia  in  that  ms.  The  following  is  a  simple  example  of  a 
scholium  on  II.  x  306,  in  which  the  readings  preferred  by 
Zenodotus,  Aristophanes  and  Aristarchus  are  all  recorded : — 

Sojctw  ■yap  8i<f>pov  tc  8 v»  r *  4piav)(€vas  lirirovs, 
ol'  K€V  apUTTCVtoKTl  0OT)IS  €TtI  VT|V<rlv  ’A^aKOV, 

ovtcvs  ’A pLarapxos,  oi  Kev  dpicrToi  iioar  6  8e  ZtjvoSotos  atirods  ol 
<f>optovo  iv  ap.vp.ova  Hr)\ei(t)va  (cp.  1.  323)'  ’ ApL<rTo<pdvr]s  /caXo vs  ol 
(poplovaiv. 

In  the  following  passage  (II.  viii  535-541)  we  have  critical 
symbols  in  the  margin,  with  a  scholium  giving  the  statement  by 
Aristonicus  of  the  views  of  Zenodotus  and  Aristarchus,  and  adding 
that  the  statement  of  those  views  by  Didymus  was  identical  with 
that  of  Aristonicus  : — 

a 

3  avpiov  t|v  ap€T^v  SiatureTcu,  el'  k*  epov  %y\os 
3  pe£vr]t  eirep^opevov’  aXX*  ev  TrpwTOwrtv,  oto>, 

3  KetcreTai  ovtt)0€is,  iroXees  8*  ap4>5  avrov  eratpoi, 

•  rjeXiov  aviovros  4$  avpiov.  el  ycilp  4y«v  a>$ 

•  elr]v  adavaros  Kal  ayi^pus  Tjpara  iravra, 

•  Tioiprjv  8’  w$  tUt*  *A0T]va£Tj  Kal  ’AthSXXcdv, 

« S  vvv  ^pe'pt]  T)8e  KaKov  4>€p€l  ’Apyei'oio-iv. 

otl  fj  toijtovs  Set  rods  rpeis  orlxovs  plveiv,  oh  to  avrltnypa  irapdiKeirai ,  rj 
rods  e£?}s  rpeh ,  oh  al  ariypal  irapaKeivTaC  els  yap  ttjv  avrrjv  yeypapplvoi  eici 
Siavoiav.  ey<pivei  54  paWov  6  ’ ApLarapxos  rods  devrtpovs  8 id  to  Afavxr?/*artKW* 
T^povs  eTvai  tovs  \6yovs’  6  54  Zt/voSotos  tovs  TpioTovs  Tpeh  o88k  Hypa<f>ev.  to. 
aura  54  X4yet  irepi  tuiv  <ttIx&v  toijtiov  6  AiSvpos  a  Kal  6  ’  ApiaToviKos’  Sib  ovk 
eypd\J/apev  ra  Ai86pov.  (In  the  MS  the  third  oTiypi)  should  have  been  prefixed 
to  the  last  line,  and  not  to  the  last  but  one,  which  was  apparently  absent  from 
the  recension  of  Aristarchus  h) 

1  Aristophanes,  Aristarchus  and  his  successor  Ammonius,  as  well  as 
Didymus  and  Aristonicus,  are  mentioned  in  the  interesting  scholia  on  II.  x 
398,  partly  quoted  in  Leaf’s  n. 


VIII.] 


DIDYMUS. 


141 

Didymus  also  wrote  commentaries  on  Hesiod,  Pindar  and 
Bacchylides,  and  on  Aeschylus,  Sophocles  and  Euripides. 
Many  of  the  scholia  on  Pindar  and  Sophocles,  as  well  as  the 
extant  Lives  of  the  three  tragic  poets,  are  probably  in  the  main 
due  to  Didymus.  He  further  commented  on  the  comic  poets, 
Eupolis,  Cratinus,  and  Aristophanes,  the  extant  scholia  on  the 
last  being  traceable  through  Symmachus  to  Didymus,  and  ulti¬ 
mately  to  Aristophanes  of  Byzantium1.  Extending  his  industry 
to  prose,  he  produced  an  edition  of  Thucydides,  whose  life  by 
Marcellinus  is,  either  entirely,  or  at  least  as  far  as  regards  §§  1  — 
45,  taken  from  Didymus2;  also  of  the  Attic  orators  Antiphon, 
Isaeus,  Hypereides,  Aeschines  and  Demosthenes,  besides  at 
least  ten  books  of  rhetorical  memoranda  on  the  orators,  and  a 
monograph  7repi  tov  SeKarevaai.  His  grammatical  works  included 
a  treatise  on  inflexions  (77-epl  7ra0u)v),  and  on  orthography ;  his 
literary  and  antiquarian  works,  a  treatise  on  myths  and  legends 
(£cV>7  la-ropia),  on  the  birthplace  of  Homer,  on  the  death  of 
Aeneas,  on  Anacreon  and  Sappho3,  on  the  lyric  poets,  on  the 
amoves  of  Solon4,  on  proverbs,  and  even  on  the  De  Republica  of 
Cicero. 

Notwithstanding  his  restoration  of  the  Aristarchic  recension  of 
Homer,  he  appears  to  have  had  an  imperfect  sense  of  the  re¬ 
quirements  of  systematic  textual  criticism.  His  younger  contem¬ 
porary,  Aristonicus  of  Alexandria,  wrote  a  treatise  on  the  critical 
signs  used  by  Aristarchus ;  and,  wherever  the  views  of  Didymus 
differ  from  those  of  Aristonicus,  the  latter  are  as  a  rule  to  be 
preferred5.  The  work  of  Aristonicus  was  probably  written  before 
that  of  Didymus  on  the  same  general  subject6,  and  appears  to 
have  given  a  more  complete  account  of  the  passages  criticised  by 
Aristarchus7.  In  the  comments  of  Didymus  on  Pindar  and 
Aristophanes,  and  on  Sophocles  and  Euripides,  there  is  little 

1  Symmachus  Ji.  too  B.c.  (Wilamowitz,  Eur.  Her.  i  179);  cp.  O.  Schneider, 
De  veterum  in  Ar.  scholiomm  fontibus,  pp.  59 — 63. 

2  Susemihl,  ii  203,  note  314. 

3  Seneca,  Ep.  88  §  37.  4  Plut.  Solon ,  1. 

c  Cp.  Christ,  §  4433,  p.  612;  Wilamowitz,  /.  c.,  161. 

6  Lehrs,  /.  c. ,  28s;  Ludwich,  Aristarchs  Ho?nerische  Textkritik  7iach  den 
Fragmenten  des  Didymos ,  i  51. 

7  Ludwich,  i  60  f. 


142 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Tryphon 


trace  of  any  exceptional  acumen ;  but  he  deserves  our  gratitude 
for  gathering  together  the  results  of  earlier  work  in  criticism  and 
exegesis,  and  transmitting  these  results  to  posterity.  The  age  of 
creative  and  original  scholars  was  past,  and  the  best  service  that 
remained  to  be  rendered  was  the  careful  preservation  of  the  varied 
stores  of  ancient  learning;  and  this  service  was  faithfully  and 
industriously  rendered  by  Didymus1. 

Among  the  younger  contemporaries  of  Didymus  was  a 
specialist  in  grammar  and  pure  scholarship,  who  flourished  under 
Augustus,  named  Tryphon,  son  of  Ammonius, 
probably  not  the  pupil  of  Aristarchus  bearing  that 
name  (p.  136).  Fragments  of  his  works  are  preserved  by  writers 
such  as  Apollonius  Dyscolus,  Herodian,  Athenaeus,  and  a  third 
Ammonius  (< c .  389  a.d.)  who  abridged  a  work  on  Synonyms  by 
Herennius  Philo  (c.  100  a.d.).  It  appears  from  these  fragments 
that,  besides  dealing  with  points  of  orthography  and  prosody,  and 
with  various  parts  of  speech,  he  wrote  on  purity  of  Greek,  on 
ancient  style,  on  terms  of  music,  and  on  names  of  plants  and 
animals.  Late  abridgements  of  his  works  on  letter-changes  and 
on  tropes  and  metres  are  still  extant,  but  many  of  them 
now  survive  in  their  titles  alone,  e.g.  those  on  the  dialect  of 
Homer  and  the  lyric  poets,  and  on  Doric  and  Aeolic  Greek. 
The  titles  of  several  show  that  he  was  a  strict  adherent  of 
1  Analogy  ’ 2. 

Theon  the  ‘  grammarian  ’,  of  Alexandria,  who  flourished  under 
Tiberius,  wrote  a  commentary  on  the  Odyssey,  and 
possibly  also  on  Pindar;  and,  like  Didymus,  he 
compiled  a  lexicon  of  comic  diction.  Besides  completing  the 
commentary  of  his  father,  Artemidorus,  on  the  Ama  of  Calli¬ 
machus,  he  was  himself  a  commentator  on  Lycophron,  Theo¬ 
critus,  Apollonius  Rhodius,  and  Nicander.  To  the  poets  of  the 
Alexandrian  age  he  stood  in  the  same  relation  as  that  of  Didymus 
to  the  great  writers  of  the  classical  age  of  Athens.  He  has 


Theon 


1  Wilamowitz,  Eur.  Her.  i  157 — 166;  cp.  Christ,  §  443s;  Susemihl,  ii 
195 — 210;  M.  Schmidt,  Did.  fragtn.  (1854);  and  Hubner’s  Bibliographic , 
§  14,  p.  22. 

2  Christ,  §  554s;  Susemihl,  ii  210 — 3;  Fragments  collected  by  Velsen 
(Berlin)  1853. 


VIII.] 


TRYPHON.  THEON. 


143 


accordingly  been  aptly  described  as  4  the  Didymus  of  the 
Alexandrian  poets  5  x. 

In  this  brief  notice  of  Tryphon  and  Theon,  we  have  already 
passed  the  chronological  limits  of  this  Book.  Later  Alexan¬ 
drians,  beginning  with  Pamphilus  and  Apion,  are  reserved  for 
the  Roman  age. 

1  Christ,  §  5553;  Susemihl,  ii  215 — 7.  Cp.  Maass  in  Phil.  Uni.  iii  33,  and 
cp.  Wilamowitz,  /.  c.,  i  156,  161,  186. 


Ptolemy  I  Ptolemy  II 

and  Berenike  I.  and  Arsinoe  II. 

Gold  Octadrachm  of  Ptolemy  II  and  Arsinoe  II 
inscribed  OEflN  AAEA4>nN. 

(From  the  British  Museum.) 

For  other  portraits  of  Ptolemy  I,  Berenike  I  and  their  son  Ptolemy  II  see 
the  sard  from  the  Muirhead  collection  figured  in  Mr  C.  W.  King’s  Antique 
Gems  atid  Pings ,  I  p.  ix  and  II  pi.  xlvii  6,  and  supposed  by  Mr  King  to  have 
been  engraved  for  the  Signet  of  Ptolemy  II. 


CHAPTER  IX. 


THE  STOICS  AND  THE  SCHOOL  OF  PERGAMON. 

Grammar  was  studied  by  the  Stoics,  not  as  an  end  in  itself, 
but  as  a  necessary  part  of  a  complete  system  of 
The  dialectics.  Much  of  their  terminology  has  become 

Grammar  of  . 

the  stoics  a  permanent  part  of  the  grammarian  s  vocabulary, 
and  some  of  their  views  on  matters  of  language 

may  seem  to  the  modern  reader  very  far  from  novel.  They 

distinguished  between  the  inarticulate  cries  of  animals,  and  the 
articulate  voice  of  man  (<£w vrj  evapOpos).  The  latter  might  be 
either  reduced  to  writing  (eyypa/z/zos)  or  not  (aypap,/zos).  When 
reduced  to  writing,  it  became  a  Ae£is,  having  for  its  elements  the 
24  letters.  They  further  distinguished  between  the  sound  (o-roi- 
ov)  of  the  letter,  and  its  written  character  (^apa/cr^p  tov 

<tto lx^ov),  and  the  name  of  the  character  (e.g.  dA<£a).  They 

regarded  the  letters  as  consisting  of  seven  vowels  and  six  con¬ 
sonants  ((3  y  8,  7 t  k  r),  the  rest  being  perhaps  loosely  regarded  as 
semivowels.  From  these  letters  words  (Ae^cis)  were  formed, 
either  conveying  sense  (o-^/xai/rtKat)  or  not.  The  former  became 
a  Aoyos ;  Aeyctv  was  the  expression  of  reason  in  words,  while  irpo- 
<f>€pecrdcu  was  merely  the  utterance  of  a  sound.  Speech  might  be 
either  in  Prose  or  Verse ;  it  was  also  of  a  twofold  nature,  appealing 
to  the  ear  and  to  the  mind1.  While  the  earlier  Stoics  recognised 
four  parts  of  speech,  ovop.a ,  prjp. a,  crvv8eo-p.os,  a pOpov,  Chrysippus 
distinguished  between  ovo/za  as  ‘  a  proper  name  ’  (e.g.  SwKpar^s), 
and  ovo/za  7rpoarrjyopLKov,  no  men  appellatimi7n  (e.g.  avOpuyiros).  Under 

1  Diog.  Laert.  vii  55 — 58;  cp.  R.  Schmidt,  Stoicorum  Grammatical  p.  18  f ; 
Grafenhan,  Gesch.  der  Philologie,  i  441,  505;  Steinthal,  Sprackwissenschaft,  i2 
291—3,  and  Egger,  l.c.,  p.  349  f. 


CHAP.  IX.]  THE  GRAMMAR  OF  THE  STOICS. 


145 


a pOpov  was  included  the  pronoun  as  well  as  the  article,  and  it 
was  noticed  that,  while  the  a pOpov  was  inflected,  the  o-wSeoyios 
was  not.  The  definition  of  the  prjp. a  is  identical  with  that  of  the 
KaTriyoprjfxa,  or  predicate.  Predicates  may  be  active  ( SpOa ), 
passive  (v7rria),  or  neuter  (ovSeVcpa).  A  special  variety  of  the 
verbs  passive  in  form,  but  not  in  sense,  are  the  ‘reflexive  causative’ 
verbs  {avramrovOoTa)  now  generally  called  ‘  middle  ’.  The  term 
7nwis  or  *  inflexion  ’  is  applied  by  the  Stoics  to  the  noun  and 
the  a  pOpov  (pronoun  and  adjective),  not  to  the  verb.  While 
Aristotle  calls  the  nominative  ovop.a,  and  the  oblique  cases 
7TTGxr€i5,  the  Stoics  apply  -n-Ttoau;  to  the  nominative  as  well,  but 
they  do  not  (like  Aristotle)  call  an  adverb  a  ^two-is  of  the 
corresponding  adjective1.  In  fact  they  confine  tttwo-is  to  the  four 
cases,  the  nominative  (opOrj  nrt or  evOela,  casus  rectus)  and  the 
three  oblique  cases  (tttwo-ci?  7rAdyiai),  the  genitive  (yevi >07),  the 
dative  (SorLK-ij)  and  the  accusative  (an-ian/o)).  The  original 
meaning  of  these  oblique  cases  was  soon  forgotten ;  the  accusative 
did  not  originally  mean  the  case  that  denotes  the  object  of  an 
accusation,  but  the  case  that  denotes  the  effect  of  (to  alriarov, 
‘  that  which  is  caused  by  ’)  an  action ;  so  that  its  original  meaning 
is  best  expressed  by  the  epithet  effectivus  or  causativus.  Again, 
yeviKT]  to  the  Stoics  could  only  mean  the  case  that  denotes  the 
ycVos  or  kind  or  class  (as  in  the  ‘partitive’  genitive),  although 
Priscian  afterwards  translated  it  by  generalis 2.  A  verb,  when 
used  with  a  nominative  subject,  is  called  by  the  Stoics  a  (rvp./3ap.a 
(e.g.  7r€pt7rar€t) ;  when  used  with  an  oblique  case  a  7rapa<rv/x/?a/xa 
(e.g.  /xcraftcAa).  A  verb  with  a  nominative  subject  needing  an 
oblique  case  to  complete  the  sentence  is  called  e'Aarrov  fj  crvp.j3ap.a 
(e.g.  nAarcoi/  <f)L\el  Aitova) ;  a  verb  with  an  oblique  case  needing 
another  oblique  case  to  complete  the  sentence  is  called  eXa ttov  r) 
7rapa(TvpL/3apia  (e.g.  ^toKparei  /x€Ta/xeAet  ’AA/a/^idSous)3.  In  Other 
words,  we  have  two  kinds  of  verb,  personal  and  impersonal,  and 
each  of  these  kinds  may  be  either  transitive  or  intransitive. 
Time  past,  present  and  future  was  distinguished  as  (xpo^os) 
7r apto)(rip.evo<;,  iv€(rTto<s  and  peWtov.  The  Stoics  named  the  present 
and  past  tenses  as  follows : 

1  Supra,  p.  97.  Steinthal,  i  297 — 303. 

2  Zeller’s  Stoics  etc.  p.  94.  3  Steinthal,  i  306. 


S. 


10 


146 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Present :  (xpbvos)  iveor&s  TraparanKbs  (or  areX'/js). 

Imperfect:  vapcpxVP-^0 s  TraparariKos  (or  dreXiJs). 

Perfect:  evecrrws  owreXirbs  (or  rbXeios). 

Pluperfect:  7 rapipxv  Petros  owreXirbs  (or  rbXeios). 

The  above  four  tenses,  whether  reActot  or  cb-eXcis,  are  all 
wpia/xeroL,  ( tempora )  finita ;  the  other  tenses,  whether  future  or 
past,  are  aopto-rot ;  but,  while  the  future  is  called  6  /xcAAcov 
(xpovos),  the  term  dopto-ro?  is  only  used  of  the  past1. 

The  Stoics  also  paid  special  attention  to  Etymology.  They 
regarded  language  as  a  product  of  nature,  and  ‘  onomatopoeia  ’  as 
the  principle  on  which  words  were  first  formed.  This  is  defi¬ 
nitely  stated  by  Origen2,  and  the  statement  is  confirmed  in  a 
treatise  bearing  the  name  of  St  Augustine3;  while,  before  the 
time  of  either,  the  fanciful  etymologies  of  the  Stoics  had  been 
singled  out  for  attack  by  Galen4.  Apart  from  Diogenes  Laertius 
and  certain  ancient  commentators  on  Aristotle,  our  chief  authority 
for  the  views  of  the  Stoics  on  questions  of  language  is  the  treatise 
of  St  Augustine  above  mentioned5.  Their  grammatical  theories 
were  known  to  Varro,  who  (as  he  tells  us)  combined  the  study  of 
Cleanthes  with  that  of  Aristophanes  of  Byzantium6. 

The  founder  of  the  Stoics,  Zeno  of  Citium  (336-264),  is  said 
to  have  written  7 repl  Xegewv,  and  as,  in  Stoic  termi- 

Ze  no 

nology,  is  defined  as  ‘  voice  in  written  form  ’, 
it  has  been  conjectured  that  the  work  dealt  mainly  with  definitions 
of  terms,  while  it  included  passages  in  which  the  author  gave  an 
extended  meaning  to  the  term  ‘  solecism  ’ 7.  He  also  wrote  on 

1  Steinthal,  i  309,  314;  T.  Rumpel,  Casuslehre,  1845,  pp.  1 — 70. 

2  Contra  Celsuin ,  i  p.  18,  ...ws  vopi^ovoiv  oi  airo  rijs  2roas  (pboei  (ion  ra 
ovopLara),  t UL/xov/xbucju  tCov  irpJjTiov  <pwvQ>v  ra  irpaypara  nad’  c ov  ra  ovopara,  Kadb 
kcu  (TTOixCia  TLva  erv poXoyias  elcrayovcnv. 

3  Principia  Dialecticae,  c.  6,  haec  quasi  cunabula  verborum  esse  credide- 
runt,  ut  sensus  rerum  cum  sonorum  sensu  concordarent. 

4  De  Platonis  et  Hippocr.  Dogm.  ii  2,  a\a£d> v  eon  paprvs  77  iTvpoXoyia ..., 
(Chrysippus  appeals  to  the  evidence  of  poets  and)  rr)v  j3eXrloTT]v  irvpoXoyiav 
tl  a  Wo  tolovtov,  a  7r  epalvet  pkv  ovbtv,  avaXioKei  de  Kal  Kararpi^ei  part]  v  ijpQu 
rbv  xpbvov. —  On  the  subject  in  general  cp.  R.  Schmidt,  Stoicorum  Grammatica , 
1839;  also  Steinthal,  i  271 — 374;  Christ,  §  426s,  and  Susemihl,  i  48 — 87. 

5  Steinthal,  i  293  f;  Teuffel,  Rom.  Lit.,  §  440,  7  Schwabe. 

6  Varro,  L.  L.  v  9,  non  solum  ad  Aristophanis  lucernam,  sed  etiam  ad 
Cleanthis  lucubravi. 

7  A.  C.  Pearson,  Fragments  of  Zetio  and  Cleanthes ,  pp.  27,  81,  82. 


IX.] 


ZENO.  CLEANTHES.  CHRYSIPPUS. 


147 


‘  poetry  \  together  with  five  books  on  ‘  Homeric  problems  ’,  full  of 
allegorical  interpretations,  which  were  justly  attacked  by  Aris¬ 
tarchus1.  Like  Aristotle,  he  accepted  the  Margites  as  a  work  of 
Homeric  authorship,  and  in  Od.  iv  84  he  introduced  by  emen¬ 
dation  a  reference  to  the  ‘  Arabians  ’ 2.  He  regarded  Zeus,  Hera 
and  Poseidon  as  representing  aether,  air  and  water  respectively ; 
and,  in  interpreting  Hesiod’s  Theogony ,  he  gave  free  play  to  his 
etymological  fancy3.  The  allegorical  interpretation  of  myths  in 
general,  and  of  the  Homeric  poems  in  particular,  was  in  fact  one 
of  the  characteristics  of  the  Stoic  school4 *. 

Zeno’s  successor,  Cleanthes  of  Assos  (331-232),  wrote  on 
grammar,  and  was  the  first  of  the  Stoics  to  write  on 

.  ,  t  1  •  .  Cleanthes 

rhetoric  .  In  his  work  irepi  tov  Troi-pjov  he  treated 
of  Homer,  applying  playful  etymologies  and  fanciful  allegories  to 
the  interpretation  of  the  poet.  In  the  allegorical  sense  which  he 
applies  to  the  herb  ‘  moly  ’  we  find  the  earliest  known  example  of 
the  word  dXX^yopiKws6.  With  Cleanthes  ‘the  Eleusinian  mys¬ 
teries  are  an  allegory ;  Homer,  if  properly  understood,  is  a  witness 
to  truth ;  the  very  names  given  to  Zeus,  Persephone,  Apollo,  and 
Aphrodite  are  indications  of  the  hidden  meaning  which  is  veiled 
but  not  perverted  by  the  current  belief,  and  the  same  is  true  of 
the  myths  of  Heracles  and  Atlas’7.  He  described  poetry  as  the 
best  medium  for  expressing  the  dignity  of  divinity8;  and  his  grave 
and  dignified  Hymn  to  Zeus  is  still  extant9. 

As  a  representative  of  the  grammatical  as  well  as  the  general 
teaching  of  the  Stoics  he  was  less  famous  than  Chry- 
sippus  (< c .  280 — c.  208-4),  who  is  proverbially  known 
as  the  Pillar  of  the  Stoic  Porch10,  el  /jltj  -yap  rjv  X-pvaimros,  ovk  av 
rjv  Srod11.  He  showed  his  independence  of  character  by  de- 


Chrysippus 


1  Diog.  Laert.  vii  4;  Dion  Chrys.  Or.  53,  4. 

2  Pearson,  /.  c. ,  pp.  31,  218,  219. 

3  Pearson,  t.c.,  pp.  13,  155.  4  Zeller’s  Stoics ,  334 — 348. 

5  Cic.  de  Fin.  iv  7;  Quint,  ii  15,  35;  Striller,  De  Stoicorum  studiis  rhe- 

toricis. 

6  Pearson,  pp.  287,  293.  7  ib.  p.  43. 

8  Philodemus,  De  Musica,  col.  28;  cp.  Seneca,  Ep.  108,  10  (ib.  p.  279  f). 

9  Stobaeus,  Eel.  i  1,  12  (ib.  p.  274). 

10  Cic.  Acad,  ii  75,  qui  fulcire  putabatur  porticum  Stoicorum. 

11  Diog.  Laert.  vii  183. 


IO — 2 


148 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


dining  an  invitation  to  the  court  of  Alexandria,  and  by  never 
dedicating  to  royalty  any  of  his  numerous  works.  They  exceeded 
the  number  of  700,  and  it  was  said  of  him  that  no  one  ever  was 
a  clearer  dialectician  or  a  worse  writer1 ;  accordingly  his  writings 
have  not  survived.  Himself  a  native  of  Soli  in  Cilicia,  he  wrote 
several  works  on  ‘  Solecisms  ’,  a  term  which  then  had  no  con¬ 
nexion  with  the  dialect  of  the  inhabitants  of  Soli,  but  implied 
faults  of  logic,  as  well  as  offences  against  good  taste  and  correct 
pronunciation2.  He  also  wrote  a  series  of  works  on  ‘ambiguity’ 
(afjL<fnl3o\La),  with  treatises  ‘  on  the  five  cases  ’,  ‘  on  singular  and 
plural  terms ’,  ‘on  rhetoric’,  and  ‘on  the  parts  of  speech’3.  To 


the  five  parts  of  speech  recognised  by  Chrysippus  (01/0/xa,  irpoa- 
rj-yopca,  prjp-a,  avv&eo-pLos  and  apOpov ),  his  pupil,  Antipater  of 
Tarsus,  added  a  sixth  (^€0-01-179,  the  participle).  Chrysippus 
agreed  with  Zeno  in  holding  that  not  only  justice,  but  also  law, 
and  language  in  its  correct  form  (SpObs  Xoyos),  exist  by  nature. 
He  wrote  four  books  on  ‘anomaly’4,  being  (so  far  as  is  known) 
the  first  to  use  the  term  in  a  grammatical  sense,  as  the  opposite 
of  ‘analogy’5,  the  adherents  of  ‘analogy’  insisting  on  the  rules 
applicable  to  the  forms  of  words,  and  the  adherents  of  ‘  anomaly  ’ 
on  the  exceptions.  The  cause  of  ‘  analogy  ’  was  maintained  by  the 
Alexandrian  critic,  Aristarchus,  while  among  the  most  conspicuous 
adherents  of  ‘  anomaly  ’  was  the  Stoic  Crates  of  Mallos,  who,  like 
Chrysippus  and  Antipater,  was  a  native  of  Cilicia,  and  (about 
168  b.c.  )  was  the  head  of  the  Pergamene  school. 

Pergamon,  the  literary  rival  of  Alexandria,  was  a  town  of 
ancient  origin  in  a  lofty  situation  looking  down  on 
andTts^iers  the  valley  of  the  Caicus,  about  15  miles  from  the 
Mysian  coast.  Early  in  the  Alexandrian  age  a 
dynasty  was  there  founded  by  Philetaerus,  treasurer  of  Lysimachus, 
king  of  Thrace.  Throwing  off  his  allegiance  to  Lysimachus 
(c.  283),  he  appropriated  the  vast  treasure  of  9000  talents  entrusted 


1  Dion.  Hal.,  De  Comp.  Verb.  c.  4. 

2  Grafenhan,  i  508  f. 

3  Classen,  De  Gram.  Gr.  Prim.  73  f. 

4  Diog.  Laert.  vii  192,  Tve.pl  rr 7s  Kara  ras  X^ets  dvcop.a\las  nvpbs  A  lava,  5' ; 
Varro,  L.  L>,  ix  i  (Susemihl,  ii  8). 

5  Lersch,  Sprachphilosophie,  i  51. 


IX.] 


PERGAMON  AND  ITS  RULERS. 


149 


to  his  care,  and  bequeathed  his  power  to  his  nephews  Eumenes  I 
(263-241)  and  Attalus  I  (241-197).  Eumenes  I  was  not  only  a 
generous  patron  of  Arcesilaus,  a  native  of  the  neighbouring  town 
of  Pitane,  the  first  president  of  the  Middle  Academy  at  Athens, 
and  the  writer  of  epigrams  in  honour  of  Attalus  I ;  he  also 
invited  to  his  court  the  Peripatetic  philosopher,  Lycon1.  His 
famous  successor  Attalus  I  claimed  the  title  of  king  after  his 
early  victories  over  the  Gallic  invaders,  and  celebrated  those 
victories  by  a  splendid  series  of  sculptures  in  bronze,  the  most 
famous  of  which  is  familiar  to  us  in  the  marble  copy  now  known 
as  the  ‘  Dying  Gaul  ’  of  the  Capitoline  Museum.  Among  the 
sculptors  employed  on  these  works  was  Antigonus,  who  also  wrote 
treatises  on  the  toreutic  art  and  on  famous  painters,  and  is  once 
called  Antigonus  of  Carystos2.  The  sculptor  and  writer  on  art 
has  accordingly  been  identified  with  the  author  of  that  name  and 
place,  who  died  later  than  226  b.c.,  after  writing  lives  of  philoso¬ 
phers  founded  on  his  personal  knowledge  and  frequently  quoted 
by  Diogenes  Laertius,  and  also  a  work  on  the  wonders  of  nature, 
which  is  still  extant.  In  literature  he  is  the  leading  representative 
of  the  earlier  Pergamene  School3.  Attalus  I  was  himself  an 
author,  and  his  description  of  a  large  pine-tree  in  the  Troad  is 
preserved  in  Strabo  (p.  603).  He  invited  to  his  court  Lacydes, 
the  successor  of  Arcesilaus,  as  the  head  of  the  Academy  at 
Athens,  but  Lacydes  declined  with  the  apt  reply  that  pictures 
should  be  seen  from  a  certain  distance.  He  nevertheless  laid  out 
for  Lacydes  a  special  garden  in  the  grounds  of  the  Academy4. 
He  was  more  successful  in  inviting  the  future  historian  of  his  reign, 
the  younger  Neanthes,  and  the  eminent  mathematician,  Apol¬ 
lonius  of  Perga,  who  dedicated  to  the  king  his  celebrated  work  on 
Conic  Sections.  It  was  probably  under  his  rule  that  books 
began  to  be  collected  for  the  Pergamene  Library, 
but  the  credit  of  actually  building  the  fabric  is 
expressly  assigned  by  Strabo  (p.  624)  to  his  successor  Eumenes  II 


The  Library 


1  Diog.  Laert.  iv  30,  38. 

2  Zenobius,  Paroem.,  v  82. 

3  Cp.  the  brilliant  and  suggestive  work  of  Wilamowitz,  Antigonos  von 
Karystos,  in  Phil.  Unt.  iv;  also  Christ,  §  4303;  and  Susemihl,  i  468  f. 

4  Diog.  Laert.  iv  60. 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


150 

(1 97-1 59  b.c.),  the  elder  son  of  Attalus  I  by  Apollonis,  whose 
beautiful  head  may  still  be  seen  figured  on  the  coins  of  Cyzicus1. 
Eumenes  II  strove  to  bring  the  Library  to  the  same  level  as  that 
of  Alexandria,  and  apparently  endeavoured  to  induce  Aristophanes 
of  Byzantium  to  leave  Alexandria  for  Pergamon2.  He  adorned 
his  capital  with  magnificent  structures,  including  a  great  altar  of 
Zeus.  The  frieze  represented  the  battle  of  the  Gods  and  Giants 
in  a  perfect  pantheon  of  highly  animated  mythological  figures, 
whose  varied  attributes  possibly  owed  part  of  their  inspiration  to 
the  learned  mythologists  of  the  Pergamene  Library3.  The  altar 
has  been  assigned  to  about  180-170  b.c.,  and  our  knowledge  of 
its  sculptures,  as  well  as  of  the  architecture  and  topography  of 
Pergamon  in  general,  has  been  vastly  increased  by  the  German 
excavations  of  1878  to  18864.  Along  a  lower  level  than  the 
precinct  of  the  altar,  ran  the  vast  terrace  of  the  theatre,  with  the 
theatre  itself  above  it,  to  the  left  of  the  altar.  Above  the  theatre 
and  the  altar  was  the  precinct  of  the  temple  of  Athena  Polias 
Nicephorus,  with  the  acropolis  rising  beyond  it,  1000  feet  above 
the  level  of  the  sea.  The  precinct  of  Athena,  a  quadrangle  of 
about  240  feet  by  162,  was  bounded  on  the  east  by  a  single 
colonnade,  about  19  feet  in  breadth,  and  by  a  double  colonnade, 
twice  as  broad,  to  the  north.  These  colonnades  were  in  two 
stories,  and  to  the  north  of  the  upper  storey  of  the  double 
colonnade  the  remains  of  four  large  rooms  have  been  discovered. 
The  largest  of  these  is  42  feet  in  length  and  49  in  width ;  the  rest 
vary  in  length,  and  are  39  feet  wide.  Along  the  eastern,  northern 
and  western  sides  of  the  largest  room  are  the  foundations  of  a 
narrow  platform  or  bench,  and  in  the  centre  of  the  northern  side 
a  mass  of  stonework  identified  as  the  pedestal  of  a  statue.  In 
front  of  this  pedestal,  and  facing  the  south-east  entrance,  was 
found  a  colossal  statue  of  Athena,  the  tutelar  divinity  of  libraries5; 
and,  in  adjacent  portions  of  the  ruins,  pedestals  of  statues  bearing 

1  Head’s  Coins  of  the  Ancients,  Plate  48,  6.  For  portrait  of  Eumenes  II, 
see  p.  164  infra. 

2  Sui'das  ( s.v .  ’A pt<rro0.)  ws  /3ov\6/j.ei'os  irpos  ^jv/uibvr]  (pvyecv,  supra,  p.  in. 

3  E.  A.  Gardner’s  Handbook  of  Gr.  SculpHire ,  ii  462. 

4  Cp.  the  official  reports;  also  Baumeister’s  Denkmdler ,  pp.  1201  — 1287; 
and  Holm,  iv  c.  21,  n.  1  etc. 

5  Juv.  iii  219;  Plin.  N  H.  vii  210. 


IX.] 


THE  PERGAMENE  LIBRARY. 


151 

the  names  of  Homer,  Alcaeus,  Herodotus  and  Timotheus  of 
Miletus  (d.  357  b.c.),  besides  two  Macedonian  historians  (Apol¬ 
lonius  and  Balacrus)  who  are  less  known  to  fame1.  A  block  of 
stone  inscribed  with  a  couplet  in  honour  of  Sappho,  identical 
with  that  assigned  in  Anth.  vii  15  to  Antipater  of  Sidon 
(c.  150  b.c.),  had  been  seen  at  Pergamon  early  in  the  fifteenth 
century.  Such  portrait-statues  are  characteristic  of  libraries2.  In 
the  largest  room  were  observed  two  rows  of  holes  in  the  north 
wall,  and  the  lower  of  these  two  rows  was  continued  along  the 
east  wall.  These  holes  may  have  served  to  receive  supports  for 
brackets  or  shelves.  There  is  every  probability  that  the  ruins  of 
these  four  rooms  are  all  that  remains  of  the  famous  Pergamene 
Library3.  The  small  adjacent  rooms  may  have  been  used  by 
copyists  and  attendants,  while  the  upper  floor  of  the  colonnade 
in  front  of  the  Library  may  have  served  as  a  place  of  either 
transit  or  lounge.  In  any  case  it  had  a  sunny  outlook  towards  the 
S.E.,  thus  commanding  an  immediate  view  of  the  temple  of  the 
‘Victorious  Athena’  and  the  sculptured  memorials  of  victory  or 
of  gratitude  in  the  court  below,  and,  beyond  the  latter,  a  wide 
prospect  of  the  valley  of  the  Caicus. 

The  inscriptions  above  the  colonnades  and  on  the  literary 
statues  already  mentioned  are  sometimes  assigned  to  the  reign  of 
Attalus  II  (159-138)4,  who,  like  both  of  his  predecessors,  was  a 
patron  of  art  and  learning.  It  was  to  Attalus  II  that  Apollodorus 
of  Athens  dedicated  his  great  work  on  Chronology  after  leaving 
Alexandria  for  Pergamon  ( [c .  146  b.c.)5.  As  a  pupil  of  the  Stoic 
Seleucus,  and,  for  a  still  longer  time,  of  Aristarchus,  Apollodorus 
forms  a  link  between  the  school  of  Alexandria  and  that  of 
Pergamon,  which  was  closely  connected  with  the  Stoic  philo¬ 
sophy. 

1  P'rankel,  nos.  198 — 203.  2  Plin.  N.H.  xxxv  10. 

3  Conze,  Monatsber.  d.  Berlin.  Akad.  1884,  pp.  1259 — 1270;  Baumeister’s 
Denk?ndler,  p.  1222  with  general  plan  on  p.  1215  and  restoration  of  the  pre¬ 
cinct  of  Athena  on  p.  1219;  Pauly- Wissowa,  s.v.  Bibliotheken ,  p.  414;  Pon- 
tremoli  and  Collignon’s  Per  game,  pp.  135 — 152;  and  J.  W.  Clark,  The  Care  of 
Books  (1901),  pp.  7 — 11,  where  there  is  a  plan  of  the  Library  reduced  from 

Plate  iii  in  vol.  11  of  the  Altertiimer  von  Pergamon,  1885. 

4  Urlichs,  Perg.  Inschr.  (1883)  p.  20  f. 

5  See  p.  135. 


152 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Attalus  II  was  succeeded  by  Attalus  III  (138-133),  a  san¬ 
guinary  tyrant,  who  failed  to  follow  the  great  example  set  by  his 
predecessors  either  as  patrons  of  learning  or  as  promoters  of  the 
arts  of  sculpture  and  architecture.  He  was  apparently,  however, 
the  theme  of  an  encomium  by  Nicander  ( c .  202 — c.  133),  already 
mentioned  (p.  116)  as  the  author  of  didactic  poems  on  venomous 
bites  and  on  antidotes,  who  possibly  had  some  sympathy  with  the 
king’s  pursuits.  Neglecting  his  royal  duties,  he  amused  himself 
with  gardening,  taking  special  interest  in  the  cultivation  of 
poisonous  plants.  He  also  had  a  fancy  for  making  models  in  wax 
and  casting  figures  in  bronze  \  Such  was  the  degenerate  form  in 
which  the  patronage  of  art  expired  in  the  last  of  the  Attalids. 
The  inscriptions  of  Pergamon1 2  credit  him  however  with  military 
prowess  in  some  victory  (possibly  involving  a  slight  extension  of 
territory)  which  is  otherwise  unknown.  In  his  brief  reign  of  five 
years  there  appears  to  have  been  nothing  more  notable  than  the 
bequest  of  his  property  to  the  Roman  people  (133  b.c.).  His 
family  had  then  been  in  power  for  exactly  150  years3. 

Antigonus  of  Carystos  has  already  been  mentioned  as  the 
leading  representative  of  the  early  Pergamene  school 
(p.  149).  Among  other  scholars  who  owed  allegiance 
to  the  rulers  of  Pergamon,  was  Polemon  of  Ilium,  a 
contemporary  of  Aristophanes  of  Byzantium  (fl.  200-177  b.c.). 
He  is  known  to  have  addressed  a  letter  to  Attalus,  probably  the 
first  of  that  name.  It  was  doubtless  in  recognition  of  his.  work  on 
the  treasures  of  Delphi  that  he  was  made  a  proxenus  of  that  place 
in  177  b.c.  He  lived  for  some  time  at  Athens,  of  which  he 
became  a  citizen,  and  also  probably  at  Pergamon ;  but  he  was 
specially  famous  for  his  extensive  travels  in  all  parts  of  Greece, 
and  in  Italy  and  Sicily.  He  was  a  prolific  writer  on  Greek 
topography,  and  his  diligence  in  copying,  collecting  and  ex¬ 
pounding  inscriptions  led  to  his  receiving  from  an  adherent  of 


Polemon  of 
Ilium 


1  Justin  xxxvi  4,  3  (ap.  Susemihl,  ii  415). 

2  Frankel,  nos.  246,  249. 

3  On  the  history  of  Pergamon,  cp.  Fynes-Clinton,  Fasti  Hell.,  iii  400 — 4 10; 
Holm’s  History  of  Greece,  iv  c.  13,  n.  6,  and  c.  21;  and  Wilcken  in  Pauly- 
Wissowa,  s.v.  Attalus.  On  the  ‘will’  of  Attalus  III  cp.  Mommsen,  History  of 
Rome,  Bk  iv  c.  1,  and  Mahaffy  in  Hermathena,  ix  (1896),  pp.  389 — 405. 


IX.] 


POLEMON.  DEMETRIUS  OF  SCEPSIS. 


153 


Crates  in  a  later  age  the  title  of  stelokopas ,  or  ‘  the  tapper  of 
tablets’1,  a  title  reminding  us  of  the  itinerant  antiquary  whose 
care  in  tending  the  moss-grown  memorials  of  the  names  of  the 
Covenanters  led  to  his  being  known  as  ‘Old  Mortality’.  Polemon 
was  however  more  widely  known  as  the  periegetes.  His  w^orks 
were  quoted  by  Didymus  and  Aristonicus,  and  by  Strabo  and 
Plutarch,  the  latter  of  whom  eulogises  his  learning  and  his  vivid 
interest  in  Hellenic  matters2.  He  devoted  four  books  to  the 
Votive  Offerings  on  the  Athenian  Acropolis  alone.  The  question 
how  far  Pausanias  is  directly  or  indirectly  indebted  to  Polemon 
has  been  much  discussed,  but  his  indebtedness  is  conclusively 
disproved  by  Mr  Frazer3.  His  interests  were  not  limited  to 
topography.  His  antiquarian  researches  led  him  to  the  study  of 
Greek  Comedy,  and  we  owe  to  Polemon  nearly  all  that  is  known 
on  the  subject  of  Greek  parodies4. 

Antiquarian  research  was  represented  in  the  same  age  by 
Demetrius  of  Scepsis  in  the  Troad  (born  c.  214  b.c.), 
who  wTrote  a  discursive  work  in  30  books  on  the  scepSstnUS  °f 
list  of  the  Trojan  forces  comprised  in  only  60  lines 
of  the  second  book  of  the  Iliad.  In  the  language  of  Professor 
Jebb,  ‘this  work  appears  to  have  been  one  of  the  most  wonderful 
monuments  of  scholarly  labour  which  even  the  indefatigable 
erudition  of  the  Alexandrian  age  produced.  The  most  complete 
examination  of  every  point  which  the  subject  raised  or  suggested 
was  supported  by  stores  of  learning  drawn  from  every  province  of 
ancient  literature,  from  every  source  of  oral  or  local  tradition. 
Mythology,  history,  geography,  the  monographs  of  topographers, 
the  observations  of  travellers,  poetry  of  every  age  and  kind, 
science  in  all  its  ancient  branches,  appear  to  have  been  laid  under 
contribution  by  this  encyclopaedic  commentator’5.  He  is  quoted 
by  Strabo  in  more  than  25  passages,  particularly  in  connexion 
with  the  topography  of  the  Troad,  where  his  local  knowledge  is 
described  as  especially  valuable  (p.  602,  §  43).  In  agreement 

1  Herodicus  ap.  Athen.  434  d. 

2  Qu.  Symp.  v  2,  675  B,  iro\vp.adovs  Kal  ov  vvcrra^ovros  ev  tois  ’KWtjvlkois 
irpayixacnv  avdpos. 

3  Pausanias,  I  lxxxiii — xc. 

4  Athen.  698  b.  Susemihl,  i  665 — 676. 


5  J.  H.  S.  ii  34  f. 


154 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


with  the  views  of  Hellanicus  of  Miletus,  Polemon  of  Ilium  had 
with  local  patriotism  identified  the  Greek  Ilium  in  the  Trojan 
plain  as  the  site  of  Homeric  Troy.  The  Greek  Ilium  corresponds 
to  Hissarlik,  or  Schliemann’s  ‘Troy’,  which  lies  only  3  miles 
from  the  Hellespont.  The  pretensions  of  the  Ilians  were  re¬ 
jected  by  Demetrius  of  Scepsis  in  favour  of  a  lofty  site  about 
3J  miles  further  inland,  corresponding  to  the  village  of  Bundr- 
bashi 1. 


From  Polemon  of  Ilium  and  Demetrius  of  Scepsis,  who 
belonged  to  the  district  of  the  Troad  subject  to  the  rulers  of 
Pergamon,  we  pass  to  the  name  of  one  who  was  closely  connected 
with  Pergamon  itself.  The  head  of  the  Pergamene  school  during 
the  reign  of  Eumenes  II  (the  builder  of  the  Library) 
Maliks S  °f  was  Crates  of  Mallos.  He  was  a  strong  opponent 
of  his  somewhat  earlier  contemporary,  the  great 
critic  Aristarchus  of  Alexandria,  being  (like  Chrysippus)  an 
adherent  of  ‘anomaly’  as  opposed  to  ‘^analogy’2.  He  was  also 
an  opponent  of  Aristarchus  in  the  allegorical  treatment  of  Homer 
which  (as  we  have  seen,  p.  147)  was  characteristic  of  the  Stoic 
school  to  which  Crates  belonged.  His  views  were  expounded  in 
an  allegorical  commentary  on  Homer,  and  also  in  a  critical 
commentary,  entitled  'O/^piKa  and  ScopOwriKa  respectively3.  Frag¬ 
ments  of  these  are  preserved  in  the  scholia,  which  also  contain 
traces  of  a  ‘  life  of  Homer  ’.  Besides  these  we  have  some  stray 
remarks  on  Hesiod,  and  fuller  proof  of  the  existence  of  commen¬ 
taries  on  Euripides  and  Aristophanes,  with  a  work  on  the  Attic 
dialect.  Whether  he  produced  any  ‘  edition  ’  of  Homer,  as 
distinguished  from  critical  remarks  on  the  text,  is  uncertain4. 


1  Jebb’s  Homer ,  p.  148;  cp.  J.  H.  S.  ii  33,  iii  185  f;  and  (in  favour  of 
Hissarlik )  Mahaffy,  ib.  iii  69  f. 

2  Varro,  L.  L.  ix  1,  Crates  nobilis  grammaticus  qui  fretus  Chrysippo 
homine  acutissimo,  qui  reliquit  irepl  dvupaXias  IIII  libros,  contra  analogiam 
atque  Aristarchum  est  nixus.  Gellius,  ii  25,  dvaXoyia  est  similium  similis  decli- 
natio,  quam  quidem  Latine  proportionem  vocant.  dvugaXia  est  inaequalitas 
declinationum,  consuetudinem  sequens.  Duo  autem  Graeci  Grammatici  illus- 
tres,  Aristarchus  et  Crates,  summo  opere  ille  dvaXoyiav,  hie  dvwpaXiav  defen- 
sitavit. 


3  He  appears  to  have  proposed  Sis  for  t/hs  in  Od.  xii  106  (Ludwich’s 
Homervulgata ,  p.  193  f). 

4  C.  Wachsmuth,  De  Cratete  Mallota  (i860),  p.  31 ;  Ludwich,  i  43  ;  Maass, 


IX.] 


CRATES  OF  MALLOS. 


155 


Among  his  Homeric  readings  several  deserve  mention,  as  in  II. 
xxi  323,  Tv/x/Soxorjs  (for  tv/x(3oxo7}<t(cu),  preferred  by  Aristarchus), 
lb.  558,  7 rpos  7reSt \ov  ’I Stjlov  (for  ’IAt/iov),  and  xxiv  253,  icar^ecs 
(for  KaTr)<f>ov €?).  In  xi  754  he  preferred  81a  o-7ri8eo<;  to  81’  d<x7ri8eos 
ttcSlolo1.  He  agreed  with  Zenodotus  and  Eratosthenes,  against 
Aristarchus,  in  allowing  Homer  to  combine  the  dual  with  the 
plural2.  He  endeavoured  to  bring  Homer  into  accord  with  the 
Stoic  views  on  geography.  The  stream  of  Oceanus  was  supposed 
to  flow  through  the  torrid  zone,  sending  forth  two  branches 
towards  each  of  the  poles.  The  scene  of  the  voyage  of  Odysseus 
was  accordingly  laid  in  the  outer  and  not  (as  Aristarchus  thought) 
in  the  inner  (or  Mediterranean)  sea3.  Menelaus  in  his  voyage  of 
seven  years  was  deemed  to  have  sailed  from  Gadeira  to  India4. 
In  the  description  of  the  land  of  the  Laestrygones,  where  ‘  the 
courses  of  the  night  and  day  are  near  together’  (01.  x  86),  Crates 
saw  a  reference  to  the  short  northern  nights5.  His  interest  in 
geography  was  further  shown  by  the  fact  that  he  constructed  a 
terrestrial  globe,  mentioned  by  Strabo  (p.  116)6. 

The  controversy  on  ‘analogy’  and  ‘anomaly’,  in  which  Crates 
was  interested  as  a  grammarian  of  the  Stoic  school,  turned 
mainly  on  matters  of  declension  and  conjugation.  Aristophanes 
of  Byzantium  had  endeavoured  to  classify  words  by  the  application 
of  five  tests.  If  two  words  were  of  the  same  ‘kind’,  e.g.  both  of 
them  nouns  or  verbs,  in  the  same  ‘  case  ’  or  ‘  inflexion  ’,  and 
identical  in  termination,  number  of  syllables  and  sound,  they  were 
‘analogous’  to  one  another;  i.e.  they  belonged  to  the  same 
declension  or  conjugation.  Aristarchus  added  a  sixth  test,  by 
which  both  the  words  compared  were  to  be  simple  or  both  of 
them  compound.  Crates  appears  to  have  regarded  all  the  trouble 
spent  on  determining  the  laws  of  declension  and  conjugation  as 
idle  and  superfluous,  and  preferred  simply  to  accept  the  phe- 

Aratea,  pp.  167 — 207.  Maass  (p.  172)  maintains  that  Crates  produced  three 
Homeric  works,  (1)  SiSpdiocn s,  (2)  7 repl  diopdibaevs  or  diopdivriKd,  (3)  'OpLypuid. 

1  Wachsmuth,  28  f.  2  ib.  20  f. 

3  Gell.  xiv  6,  3.  4  Strabo,  p.  38. 

5  Schol.  on  Aratus,  Phaen.  61. 

6  Vol.  Hercul.  xi  1472,  ra  7 repl  ttj s  acpoupoirotas  6  Kp[a]rT]s  (Usener,  ap. 
Maass,  l.c.,  p.  169). 


156 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


nomena  of  language  as  the  arbitrary  results  of  custom  and  usage. 
But  he  was  wrong  in  denying  all  ‘analogy’,  and  in  practically 
opposing  the  accurate  grammatical  scholarship  of  the  Alexandrian 
school1. 

Crates  was  probably  responsible  for  drawing  up  the  classified 
lists  (7rtVttK€s)  of  authors  in  the  Pergamene  Library,  in  which  (as  is 
sometimes  held)  the  leading  writers  of  prose,  especially  the  orators, 
had  a  prominent  place,  just  as  the  poets  had  in  the  lists  of  the 
Alexandrian  grammarians2.  It  is  true  that  Dionysius  of  Halicar¬ 
nassus  mentions  the  Pergamene  lists  in  connexion  with  a  speech 
of  Deinarchus3 ;  but  he  also  states  that  he  had  found  no  detailed 
account  of  that  orator  written  either  by  Callimachus,  or  by  the 
Pergamene  scholars4.  This  shows  that  the  critic  was  equally 
prepared  to  find  what  he  wanted  in  the  lists  of  the  Alexandrian  as 
in  those  of  the  Pergamene  school,  and  that  the  orators  were  not 
necessarily  excluded  from  the  former.  Again,  Athenaeus5  says  of 
a  play  ascribed  to  Alexis,  that  it  was  not  included  in  the  lists  of 
Callimachus  or  Aristophanes,  or  even  in  those  drawn  up  by  the 
scholars  in  Pergamon.  It  will  be  observed  that  poets  were  not 
excluded  from  the  Pergamene  lists.  The  poet  Aleman  is  the 
subject  of  the  only  notice  which  has  been  conjecturally  identified 
as  a  fragment  of  the  lists  of  Crates6;  and  the  only  epigram 
attributed  to  Crates  (Anth.  xi  218)  describes  the  epic  poet 
Choerilus  as  far  inferior  to  Antimachus. 

Crates  was  sent  as  an  envoy  to  the  Roman  Senate  ‘shortly 
after  the  death  of  Ennius’.  Now,  Ennius  died  in  169  b.c.,  and 
Suetonius7,  who  connects  the  visit  of  Crates  with  that  event,  also 

J  Susemihl,  ii  7 — 10;  cp.  Steinthal,  ii  12 1 — 126.  On  Crates  in  general  cp. 
Lubbert,  Rhein.  Mus.  xi  (1857),  428 — 443;  C.  Wachsmuth,  l.c.,  and  Hiibner’s 
Bibliographie ,  §  13. 

2  Reifferscheid,  Breslau,  1881-2;  Brzoska,  ibid.  1883  (Susemihl,  i  343,  521, 
ii  12,  484,  694). 

3  De  Dein.  11,  ouros  kv  tois  Hepyaprjvois  Hlvai-i  (ptperai  ws  Ka\\ iKparovs. 

4  ib.  1,  opCjv  ovdkv  cbcpt/3es  oiire  Ka Wtpaxov  otire  tovs  iK  Uepyapov  ypafipa- 
riKovs  irepi  avTou  ypdxj/avras. 

5  336  E,  oi  Tas  kv  I lepydpip  avaypatpas  TroLrjtxdpevoi. 

6  Sui'das,  ’AXicpav  Adicwv  airb  Meaabas,  Kara  8b  t'ov  Kparijra  irraLovTa  (?) 
Ai/5os  £k  ^dpdeuv. 

7  De  Gravwiaticis ,  c.  2,  primus... studium  grammaticae  in  urbem  intulit 


IX.] 


PERGAMON  AND  ROME. 


157 


states  that  Crates  was  sent  to  Rome  by  Attalus,  i.e.  Attalus  II, 
who  came  to  the  throne  in  159  b.c.  Hence  it  is  sometimes 
assumed  (e.g.  by  Fynes-Clinton)  that  the  visit  of  Crates  belongs 
to  the  year  159.  But  it  appears  probable  that,  while  Suetonius  is 
right  in  connecting  it  closely  with  the  death  of  Ennius,  he  is 
wrong  in  assigning  it  to  the  reign  of  Attalus.  Attalus  was  re¬ 
peatedly  in  Rome  as  the  envoy  of  his  elder  brother  Eumenes  II 
when  the  latter  was  on  the  throne.  Of  the  five  years  in  which  he 
was  in  Rome  (192,  181,  168,  163,  160),  one  was  168  b.c.,  the 
year  immediately  after  the  death  of  Ennius,  when,  after  fighting 
on  the  side  of  Aemilius  Paulus  at  Pydna,  he  was  sent  to  con¬ 
gratulate  the  Romans  on  their  victory.  On  this  occasion  he  was 
certainly  accompanied  by  the  physician  Stratius  (Liv.  xlv  19),  and 
it  appears  probable  that  he  was  also  accompanied  by  Crates.  It 
would  thus  appear  that  Crates  was  really  sent  ab  Eumene  rege  cum 
Attalo ,  and  not  ab  Attalo  rege.  By  a  curious  accident  the  visit  of 
Crates  had  a  remarkable  effect  on  literary  studies  in  Rome. 
While  he  was  wandering  on  the  Palatine,  he  accidentally  stumbled 
over  an  opening  in  a  drain  and  broke  his  leg.  He  passed  part  of 
the  time  during  which  he  was  thus  detained  in  giving  lectures, 
which  aroused  among  the  Romans  a  taste  for  the  scholarly  study 
of  literature,  with  results  which  will  be  mentioned  as  soon  as  we 
reach  the  Roman  age  (p.  1 70).  It  may  here,  however,  be  suggested 
that,  in  the  course  of  his  conversations  with  leading  Romans,  he 
could  hardly  have  failed  to  mention  the  halls  and  colonnades  of 
the  Pergamene  Library  and  the  adjacent  temple,  the  building  of 
which  is  assigned  to  Eumenes  II,  whose  envoy  he  seems  to  have 
been.  As  Attalus  whom  he  apparently  accompanied  to  Rome 
had  fought  at  Pydna,  and  as  Quintus  Metellus  was  one  of  the 
three  selected  to  carry  to  Rome  the  despatches  announcing  the 
victory  (Livy  xliv  45),  Metellus  doubtless  met  Crates  in  Rome. 
In  this  connexion  it  is  interesting  to  remember  that  in  146  b.c. 
Metellus  built  the  colonnades  of  the  Portions  Metelli  and  one  of 

Crates  Mallotes,  Aristarchi  aequalis,  qui  missus  ad  senatum  ab  Attalo  rege 
inter  secundum  ac  tertium  Punicum  bellum  sub  ipsam  Ennii  mortem ,  cum 
regione  Palatii  prolapsus  in  cloacae  foramen  crus  fregisset,  per  omne  legationis 
simul  et  valetudinis  tempus  plurimas  acroasis  subinde  fecit  assidueque  disseruit, 
ac  nostris  exemplo  fuit  ad  imitandum.  Cp.  Scioppius,  Introd.  to  Gram.  Phi - 
losophica  (1628),  quoted  in  Max  Muller’s  Lectures ,  ii  no5. 


i58 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


The  School 
of  Crates 


the  temples  which  they  enclosed,  and  that  the  Porticus  Octaviae , 
built  by  Augustus  on  its  site  (after  33  b.c.),  included  within  its 
colonnades  a  library  of  Greek  and  also  a  library  of  Latin  books, 
which  succeeded  that  of  Asinius  Pollio  in  the  Atrium  Libertatis 
(37  b.c.),  and  preceded  the  Palatine  Library  (28  b.c.)1.  Thus  the 
visit  of  Crates  may  have  ultimately  had  some  influence  on  the 
structural  arrangements  of  the  public  libraries  of  Rome. 

The  most  famous  pupil  of  Crates  was  the  Stoic  philosopher 
Panaetius2 3.  To  his  school  also  belonged  Artemon 
of  Pergamon,  the  author  of  a  commentary  on 
Pindar’s  Odes  in  honour  of  Sicilian  princes ;  Zeno- 
dotus  of  Mallos,  who  defended  certain  Homeric  passages  obelised 
by  Aristarchus;  Asclepiades  of  Myrleia  in  Bithynia  (born  between 
130  and  80  b.c.),  who  wrote  a  learned  monograph  on  Nestor’s 
cup,  with  commentaries  on  Homer  and  Theocritus,  a  history  of 
Bithynia  and  a  history  of  ‘grammarians’;  and  Heracleon  of 
Tilotis  in  Egypt,  the  author  of  a  commentary  on  the  Iliad  and 
Odyssey*. 

While  there  is  no  evidence  as  to  any  direct  connexion  between 
Pergamon  and  the  ‘Asiatic’  style  of  oratory  represented  {c.  250  b.c.) 
by  Hegesias,  a  native  of  the  city  of  Magnesia  ad  Sipylum,  about 
40  miles  distant,  we  have  certainly  a  point  of  contact  between 
Pergamon  and  the  Attic  reaction  in  the  first  century  b.c.,  and  also 
between  both  and  Rome.  Pergamon  was  the  birth- 
ofApe0rgamonS  place  of  the  rhetorician  Apollodorus  (c.  102 — 
c.  20  b.c.),  who,  after  counting  ‘the  Attic  Dionysius’ 
among  his  pupils  in  his  native  place,  left  Pergamon  for  Rome, 
where  he  was  selected  by  Julius  Caesar  as  an  instructor  of  the 
young  Octavian  (45  b.c.),  and  where  he  founded  a  flourishing 
school  of  rhetoric4.  Another  point  of  contact  between  Pergamon 
and  Rome  may  be  found  in  the  person  of  the  Stoic 
Athenodorus  of  Tarsus,  who  abused  his  position  as 
head  of  the  Pergamene  Library  by  attempting  to  tamper  with 


Athenodorus 


1  Cp.  Middleton’s  Ancient  Rome ,  ii  200  f;  and  J.  W.  Clark,  The  Care  of 
Books ,  pp.  12 — 14. 

2  The  friend  of  the  younger  Scipio,  and  the  authority  followed  by  Cicero 
in  the  De  OJficiis. 

3  Susemihl,  ii  13 — 27.  4  Susemihl,  ii  504  f. 


IX.] 


THE  SCHOOL  OF  CRATES. 


159 


passages  in  the  works  of  the  earlier  Stoics  differing  from  the  views 
of  their  successors1.  He  is  perhaps  in  part  responsible  for  the 
story  respecting  the  Peisistratean  redaction  of  the  Homeric 
poems2.  He  was  already  an  old  man  in  70  b.c.  when  Cato 
visited  Pergamon,  and  invited  him  to  become  an  inmate  of  his 
house  in  Rome,  where  he  died3.  The  school  of  Crates  claims 
another  learned  Greek  who  settled  in  Rome, 

Alexander  Polyhistor  (c.  10s — c.  3  s  b.c.).  Taken  Alexander 

.  ,  J  \  /  .  .  Polyhistor 

prisoner  in  the  time  of  Sulla,  he  was  made  a  citizen 
of  Rome  by  the  Dictator,  after  he  had  served  as  a  teacher  in  the 
house  of  Lentulus.  His  writings,  which  were  more  remarkable 
for  their  quantity  than  their  quality,  were  mainly  uncritical 
compilations  on  historical  and  geographical  subjects.  His 
legendary  history  of  Rome  was  followed  in  certain  points  by  Livy 
(i  3),  Tibullus  (ii  5)  and  Virgil  (Ae?i.  x  388);  and  his  list  of  the 
Sibyls  and  his  early  history  of  Delphi,  by  Pausanias.  He  was 
interested  in  the  nations  of  the  East  and  especially  in  the  Jews. 
He  appears  to  have  aimed  at  supplying  the  imperfectly  educated 
Roman  public  with  a  variety  of  information  which  would  enable 
them  to  understand  the  learned  poets  of  the  day,  and  would 
foster  a  belief  in  the  legendary  connexion  between  the  kings  of 
Rome  and  the  heroes  of  Troy.  Among  his  pupils  was  the  freed- 
man  Hyginus,  who  was  appointed  by  Augustus  to  preside  over 
the  Palatine  Library4. 

In  comparing  the  scholarship  of  Alexandria  with  that  of 
Pergamon,  we  must  remember  that  the  former 
passed  through  several  phases.  Under  the  first  an^Pe^glrrTon 
Ptolemy,  Hecataeus  of  Abdera,  who  was  a  historian 
as  well  as  a  scholar,  wrote  a  history  of  Egypt  representing  it  as 
the  home  of  wisdom  from  time  immemorial5.  Under  the  first 
three  Ptolemies,  whose  combined  rule  extended  over  a  century 
(323-222  b.c.),  scholarship  of  the  first  rank  flourished  at  Alex¬ 
andria  and  left  its  mark  on  all  later  ages,  while  the  poetry  of  that 
time,  which  found  imitators  in  Rome,  was  of  the  second  rank, 


1  Diog.  Laert.  vii  34.  2  Susemihl,  ii  246. 

3  Plut.  Cato  Minor ,  10,  16. 

4  Susemihl,  ii  356 — 364;  Pauly- Wissowa,  i  1449  f* 

5  Holm,  iv  c.  20,  n.  8. 


i6o 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


except  in  the  case  of  Theocritus,  who  was  not  very  closely 
connected  with  Alexandria.  In  the  first  age  of  Alexandrian 
scholarship  Phil  etas,  Zenodotus,  Callimachus  and  Eratosthenes 
were  ‘poets’  as  well  as  scholars.  In  the  second,  Aristophanes 
and  Aristarchus  were  scholars  alone :  the  scholar  had  now 
narrowed  into  the  specialist,  but  had  gained  a  new  power  in  the 
process.  This  second  age  closes  with  the  accession  of  Ptolemy 
Physcon  (146),  and  the  death  of  Aristarchus  (c.  143).  Physcon 
played  at  textual  criticism,  and  yet  persecuted  the  Greeks  of 
Alexandria,  including  the  great  critic  himself1.  The  Alexandrian 
Greeks  are  described  by  Polybius  (xxxiv  14),  who  visited  their 
city  about  136  b.c.,  as  less  uncivilised  than  the  mercenary  soldiers, 
while,  in  comparison  with  both,  the  native  Egyptians  were  ‘  clever 
and  civilised  ’.  Physcon  set  his  mercenaries  upon  the  Alex¬ 
andrians  of  Greek  descent  with  the  result  that  this  class  was 
almost  extinct  when  Polybius  visited  the  place.  This  persecution 
of  the  Greeks  made  the  Jews,  who  had  been  influenced  by  Greek 
culture,  and  were  regarded  with  suspicion  by  Physcon,  an  in¬ 
creasingly  important  element  in  the  intellectual  life  of  Alexandria. 
It  also  ‘filled  the  islands  and  cities  with  grammarians,  philosophers, 
geometricians,  musicians,  painters,  trainers,  physicians  and  many 
other  professional  persons,  whose  poverty  impelled  them  to  teach 
what  they  knew,  and  thus  to  turn  out  many  notable  pupils  ’2.  In 
the  third  age  of  Alexandrian  scholarship,  a  pupil  of  Aristarchus, 
Apollodorus  of  Athens,  preferred  Athens  and  Pergamon  to 
Alexandria,  while  Dionysius  the  Thracian  left  Alexandria  for 
Rhodes,  and  Didymus,  a  century  later,  possibly  resided  in 
Rome. 

But  in  all  its  phases  the  school  of  Alexandria  was  in  the  main 
a  school  of  verbal  criticism.  Even  the  versatile  and  widely- 
accomplished  Eratosthenes  laid  himself  open  to  the  attacks  of  a 
representative  of  the  Pergamene  school,  Polemon  of  Ilium,  who 
exposed  his  mistakes  in  matters  connected  with  Attic  antiquities, 
drawing  from  them  the  ironical  inference  that  Eratosthenes,  who 
was  actually  educated  at  Athens,  could  never  have  visited  Athens 

1  On  Physcon  (Euergetes  II),  see  supra ,  p.  135,  n.  1. 

2  Menecles  ap.  Athen.  184  c. 


IX.] 


ALEXANDRIA  AND  PERGAMON. 


161 


at  all1.  This  is  one  of  the  earliest  indications  of  the  literary 
rivalry  between  Alexandria  and  Pergamon.  The  conflict  between 
Aristarchus,  the  adherent  of  ‘analogy’,  and  Crates,  the  adherent 
of  ‘  anomaly  ’,  is  another.  The  feud  descended  to  the  successors 
of  both :  pupils  of  Aristarchus,  such  as  Dionysius  Thrax  and 
Parmeniscus,  attacked  the  opinions  of  Crates,  while  a  pupil  of 
Crates,  Zenodotus  of  Mallos,  attacked  those  of  Aristarchus2.  It 
found  an  echo  even  in  distant  Babylon.  A  follower  of  Crates,  of 
uncertain  date,  named  Herodicus  of  Babylon,  doubtless  recalling 
the  disputes  of  the  Alexandrian  critics  on  the  epic  forms  of  the 
personal  pronouns,  and  especially  the  fact  that  Aristarchus  had 
proved  that  Homer  used  only  /uv,  not  vlv,  describes  the  followers 
of  Aristarchus  as  ‘  buzzing  in  corners,  and  busy  with  mono¬ 
syllables — 

ycjjVLofio/jifBvKes  fiovoovXkafioi,  olcn  fiepirjXev 
rd  acplv  Kal  atputv  Kal  to  fx.lv  i]5b  rb  vlv3. 

While  the  school  of  Alexandria  was  mainly  interested  in 
verbal  scholarship,  the  school  of  Pergamon  found  room  for  a 
larger  variety  of  scholarly  studies.  In  that  school  art  and  the 
history  of  art  were  represented  by  Antigonus  of  Carystos ;  learned 
travel  and  the  study  of  inscriptions,  by  Polemon  of  Ilium; 
topography,  by  Demetrius  of  Scepsis ;  chronology,  by  Apollodorus 
of  Athens  ;  the  philosophy  of  the  Stoics,  combined  with  grammar 
and  literary  criticism,  by  Crates  of  Mallos.  The  cosmopolitan 
Stoics  were  readily  induced  to  settle  in  Pergamon,  while  philo¬ 
sophers  of  the  Academic  school  remained  true  to  Athens. 
Attalus  I  and  Eumenes  I  showed  a  special  interest  in  that  school, 
and  in  Athens  in  general.  The  former  commemorated  his 
conquest  of  the  Gauls  by  dedicating  famous  works  of  sculpture 

1  Trcpl  rtfs  ’A d'fjv'tfaLv  ’EpaToo-dtvovs  exLSrjfxlas.  Cp.  Strabo,  p.  15,  with 
Wilamowitz,  Antigonos  von  Karystos ,  p.  164  f;  and  Susemihl,  i  670  f. 

2  C.  Wachsmuth,  l.  c.  7. 

3  Athen.  p.  222  A,  cp.  Cobet,  Misc.  Crit.,  p.  250,  and  Susemihl,  ii  24  f. 
Similarly  Philip  of  Thessalonica  (probably  in  the  time  of  Trajan)  satirically 
describes  grammarians  as  belonging  to  the  pack  of  Zenodotus  and  the  troops 
of  Callimachus,  as  hunters  of  wretched  particles,  who  delight  in  fxlv  and  a<plv 
(Anth.  xi  321),  and  as  bookworms  of  the  school  of  Aristarchus;  and  prays 
that  an  inglorious  night  may  descend  on  the  followers  of  Callimachus  (id.  347) ; 
cp.  xi  142,  and  Virgil,  Catal.  ii  4. 


S. 


II 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


162 


on  the  acropolis  of  Athens,  as  well  as  on  the  lofty  terraces  of 
Pergamon ;  and,  in  the  time  of  the  latter,  Pergamon  had  its  own 
festival  of  the  Panathenaea.  The  Attalid  dynasty  was  also 
strongly  attracted  towards  Rome.  While  the  Alexandrian  Aris¬ 


tophanes  suggested  the  possible  spuriousness  of  the  lines  in  which 


Poseidon  foretells  the  rule  of  Aeneas  (//.  xx  306-8),  a  belief  in 
the  legend  of  Aeneas  was  prudently  fostered  by  the  school  of 
Pergamon1. 

As  compared  with  Pergamon  and  Alexandria,  few  of  the  cities 
of  the  Greek  world  were  of  special  importance  as  seats  of  learning 


during  the  Alexandrian  age.  Under  the  spell  of  its 
olden  associations,  Athens  continued  to  be  fre¬ 


Athens 


quented  as  a  school  of  philosophy.  Of  the  foremost  representatives 


of  the  New  Comedy,  which  flourished  there  from  the  death  of 
Alexander  to  about  250  b.c.,  Philemon  alone  visited  Alexandria. 
Athens  was  also  the  home  of  historians.  It  was  there  that 
Philochorus  was  engaged  on  the  study  of  the  history  of  Attica 
until  he  met  a  violent  end  as  a  supporter  of  the  cause  of  Ptolemy 
Philadelphus  against  Antigonus  Gonatas  (261).  It  was  there  that 
the  half-brother  of  Antigonus,  Craterus  (321 — c.  265),  the  son  of 
Alexander’s  general  of  the  same  name,  collected  and  elucidated 
the  historic  decrees  preserved  in  the  public  archives.  It  was 
there  also  that  Apollodorus  composed  his  great  works  on  chro¬ 
nology  and  mythology.  Among  natives  of  other  lands,  Timaeus 
of  Tauromenium  (345—249)  spent  the  last  50  years  of  his  life  at 
Athens,  and  Polemon  of  Ilium  found  a  centre  of  his  travels  in  the 
world-famous  city  which  had  made  him  one  of  her  honorary 


citizens.  In  the  Alexandrian  age,  Pella,  the  capital 
of  the  Macedonian  kings,  was  a  place  of  literary 


Pella 


resort  under  Antigonus  Gonatas  alone  (275-239),  when  the  king, 
who  was  himself  a  pupil  of  a  Megarian  philosopher  (Euphantus), 
and  a  friend  of  Zeno,  attracted  to  his  court  two  of  Zeno’s  pupils ; 
probably  also  the  philosopher  and  poet,  Timon  of  Phlius ;  and 
certainly  the  poets  Alexander  Aetolus  and  Aratus,  who  is  said  to 
have  been  indebted  to  the  king  himself  for  the  theme  of  his  great 
astronomical  poem.  Aratus  also  visited  the  Syrian  court  in  the 
time  of  Antiochus  Soter  (287-262).  Under  Antiochus  the  Great 

1  Wilamowitz,  l.c.,  p.  158  f,  esp.  161. 


IX.]  ATHENS  AND  OTHER  SEATS  OF  LEARNING.  1 63 


Antioch 


Tarsus 


(224-181),  Antioch,  the  newly  founded  capital  of  Syria,  was 
adorned  with  a  theatre  and  a  circus,  and  with  works 
of  art  and  a  library,  which  in  220  b.c.  was  placed 
under  the  care  of  the  learned  epic  poet,  Euphorion  of  Chalcis, 
who  there  remained  until  his  death,  and  in  the  following  century 
became  a  favourite  model  with  poets  such  as  Tibullus,  Propertius, 
and  Cornelius  Gallus,  besides  being  the  theme  of  a  passing 
reference  in  Virgil  {Eel.  x  50).  Antioch  is  described  as  a  home 
of  learning  and  culture  in  the  youth  of  Cicero’s  client  the 
poet  Archias,  who  was  born  f.  119  B.C.1  A  library,  with  a 
temple  of  the  Muses,  was  also  founded  there  by  the  last  of  the 
Antiochi  (after  69  b.c.).  Antioch  thus  received  from  the  last  of 
the  Seleucids  the  gift  of  a  *  Museum  ’,  which  Alexandria  had 
received  from  the  first  of  the  Ptolemies.  Tarsus 
was  celebrated  for  its  schools,  but  only  her  own 
citizens  resorted  to  them,  and  even  these  finished  their  education 
elsewhere  (Strabo,  p.  673).  Cos,  as  has  been  already  noticed 
(p.  1 18),  was  a  literary  retreat  closely  connected 
with  Alexandria,  while  Rhodes,  which  welcomed 
from  Alexandria  the  poet  of  the  Argonautic  expedi¬ 
tion  and  the  author  of  the  earliest  of  Greek  grammars,  was  a 
school  of  rhetoric  not  only  in  the  last  few  years  of  the  life  of 
Aeschines,  but  also  in  the  early  part  of  the  first  century  b.c.,  when 
the  eclectic  school  of  Molon  contributed  its  share  to  the  training 
of  the  eloquence  of  Cicero.  Rhodes  was  also  the  scene  of  the 
studies  of  Castor,  the  author  of  an  important  chronological  work, 
quoted  by  Varro2  and  by  Julius  Africanus,  beginning  with  Ninus, 
king  of  Assyria,  and  ending  with  Pompey’s  triumph  in  61  b.c.3 
It  was  further  famous  as  the  birth-place  of  the  Stoic  Panaetius 
( c .  185-110),  and  as  the  school  of  his  pupil  Poseidonius  (138-45), 
whose  lectures  were  attended  by  Cicero  in  78,  and  by  Pompey  in 
67  and  62  B.c.  His  extensive  travels  in  Italy,  Gaul  and  Spain, 
resulted  in  a  continuation  of  Polybius  from  145  to  82  b.c.,  a  work 
inspired  by  a  keen  interest  in  geography,  ethnography  and  the 
historical  development  of  human  society  at  large.  Its  influence 
has  been  traced  in  Diodorus  and  Strabo;  in  Lucretius,  Livy, 


Cos  and 
Rhodes 


1  Pro  Archia,  4. 

3  Susemihl,  ii  365 — 372. 


Augustine,  De  Civ.  Dei ,  xxi  8,  2. 


II — 2 


164 


THE  ALEXANDRIAN  AGE. 


[CHAP.  IX. 


Caesar  and  Sallust ;  in  Varro  and  Cicero,  and,  recently,  even  in 
the  Germania  of  Tacitus1.  Lastly,  it  was  the  birth-place  of 
Andronicus,  who  presided  over  the  Peripatetic  school  at  Athens 
shortly  before  the  middle  of  the  first  century  b.c.,  and  produced 
a  new  edition  of  the  ‘systematic’  works  of  Aristotle  and  Theo¬ 
phrastus,  with  classified  lists  of  their  writings,  copies  of  their  wills, 
and  paraphrases  of  the  Categories  and  commentaries  on  certain 
other  works  of  Aristotle2.  As  a  Peripatetic  he  thus  rendered  at 
least  as  great  a  service  to  literature  as  any  that  had  been  rendered 
at  Athens  in  the  Alexandrian  age  by  Academic  philosophers  such 
as  Polemon,  whose  favourite  poets  were  Homer  and  Sophocles3; 
or  Crantor,  the  admirer  of  Homer  and  Euripides4,  and  the  writer 
not  only  of  the  first  commentary  on  the  Tiniaeus  or  on  any  part 
of  Plato5,  but  also  of  a  work  on  consolation,  afterwards  imitated 
by  Cicero  and  Plutarch;  or  Clitomachus,  who  was  destined  to 
be  one  of  the  main  authorities  followed  by  Cicero  in  the  De 
Divinatione  as  well  as  in  the  De  Natura  Deorum. 

1  Gudeman,  Trans.  Am.  Philol.  Assoc,  xxxi  (1900)  107  f ;  cp.  Christ,  §  4052, 
and  Susemihl,  ii  128  f. 

2  Susemihl,  ii  301 — 5. 

3  Diog.  Laert.  iv  20. 

4  id.  26. 

5  Proclus  on  Tim.  24  a. 


Silver  Tetradrachm  of  Eumenes  II 
Founder  of  the  Pergamene  Library  (see  p.  149  f). 
(From  the  British  Museum.) 


BOOK  III 


LATIN  SCHOLARSHIP  IN  THE  ROMAN  AGE 


Grammatica  Romae  ne  in  usu  quidem  olim ,  nedum  in  honore 
tillo  erat ,  rudi  scilicet  ac  bellicosa  etiam  turn  civitate ,  necdum  mag- 
nopere  liberalibus  disciplinis  vacante. 

Suetonius,  De  Grammaticis,  §  i. 

Jc  treuve  Rome  plus  vaillante  avant  qdelle  feust  sfavante. 

Montaigne,  Essais ,  i  24. 


Conspectus  of  Latin  Literature  &c.,  c.  300 — 1  B.C. 


\  Political 
Events 

300 

Literary 

Events 

Poets 

Historians 

Orators 

Scholars  and 
Critics  &c. 

Third  Samnite 

1  War  298 — 290 

272  Tarentum 

272  Andronicus 

280  Appius 

taken 

reaches  Rome 

Claudius 

JKirst  Tunic  War 

Caecus 

264 — 241 

240  the  first 

240  Andronicus 

Latin  play 

c.  284 — c.  204 

exhibited  at 

235  Naevius 

Rome 

c.  264 — 194 

Plautus 

254-1 — 184 

Second  Punic 

216  y.  Fabius 

War  218 — 202 

Pictor^ 

204  Ennius 

b.  c.  254 

239—169 

210  L.  Cincius 

Alimentus^" 

*>00 

First  Macedon- 

j  ian  War 

200 — 197 

195  Cato 

195  Cato 

Syrian  War 

179  Caecilius 

234—149 

234—149 

192 - I9O 

d.  168 

Second  Mace- 

Cato,  De  Agri 

Pacuvius 

167  L.  Aem. 

donian  War 

Cultura ,  the 

220 - I32 

Paulus 

171 — 168 

earliest  extant 

147  Scipio  Afri- 

work  in  Latin 

166  Terence 

canus  minor 

168  Crates  of 

Third  Punic 

Prose 

185—159 

151  A.Postumius 

144  Ser.  Sulp. 

Mallos  visits 

War  149 — 146 

161  expulsion  of 

Albinus^" 

Galba 

Rome 

Numantine  War 

Greek  rheto- 

Lucilius 

142  C.  Acilius^" 

140  C.  Laelius 

i43— !33 

ricians  and 

180 — 103 

137  M.  Lepidus 

-  | 

philosophers 

L.  Accius 

Pcrcina 

155  Critolaus, 

170 — c.  90 

133  Tib.  Grac- 

133  Valerius  So- 

123  Leges  Sem- 

Carneades  and 

chus  163 — 133 

ranus  b.  c.  154 

proniae 

Diogenes  at 

123  C.  Gracchus 

Porcius  Licinus 

Cimbrian  War 

Rome 

154— 12 1 

Volcatius  Sedi- 

1  1 13 — 102 

115  L.  Coelius 

1 15  M.  Aemilius 

gitus 

Jugurthine  War 

Antipater 

Scaur us 

100  L.  Ael.  Stilo 

;l  hi — 106 

105  P.  Rutilius 

c.  154 —c.  74 

Rufus 

i  no 

JLUU 

Marsian  War 

Laberius 

99  M.  Antonius 

Servius  Clodius 

1  90 — 88 

105—43 

i43—87 

d.  60 

82  Sulla  dictator 

92  schools  of 

Lucretius 

Cl.  Quadri- 

95  L.  Licinius 

Staberius  Eros 

Latin  rhetoric 

97—53 

garius  Valerius 

Crassus 

Varro  116 — 27 

closed 

Catullus 

Antias 

I4O-9I 

Orbilius 

c.  88  school  of 

c.  84—54 

78  Sisenna 

88  P.  Sulp.  Ru- 

1 14 — c.  17 

Latin  gram- 

Bibaculus 

73  Macer  Corn. 

fus  124 — 88 

Atticus  109 — 32 

60  First  trium- 

mar  opened 

c.  83— c.  24 

Nepos  99—54 

c.  85  auctor  ad 

Santra 

virate 

by  Sevius  Ni- 

Varro  Atacinus 

Sallust  86 — 34 

Herennium 

Tiro 

Gallic  War 

canor,  and  of 

82—37 

A.  Hirtius  d.  43 

75  C.  Aur.  Cotta 

c.  104 — c.  4 

58—51 

Latin  rhetoric 

124—74 

Valerius  Cato 

Civil  War 

by  L.  Plotius 

69  Hortensius 

b.  c.  100 

49—45 

Gallus 

114—50 

58  Nigidius  Fi- 

44  d.  of  Caesar 

45  Publ.  Syrus 

63  Cicero 

gulus  98—45  || 

43  Second  trium- 

39  first  public 

Gallus  70 — 27 

106—43 

Ateius  Praetex- 

virate 

library  found- 

Virgil  7c — 19 

59  Caesar 

tatus 

ed  by  Pollio 

Horace  65 — 8 

IOO - 44 

28  Hyginus  ji 

28  bibliotheca 

Tibullus  54 — 19 

Calvus  82 — 47 

64  B.C. — 17  A.D. 

Palatina 

Propertius 

40  Pollio 

Fenestella 

31  battle  of  Ac- 

22  Aen.  ii,  iv 

49—15 

76  B.C. — 5  A.D. 

52  B.C. — 19  A.D. 

!  tium 

and  vi  recited 

Ovid 

31  Messala 

12  Q.  Caecilius 

30  Augustus 

18  Carmen  Sae- 

43  B.C. — 18  A.D. 

64  B.C. — 8  A.D. 

Epirota  • 

63  B.C. - 14  A.D. 

culare 

10  Verrius 

14  Vitruvius  De 

Livy 

Flaccus  1 

A  rchitectura 

59  B.C. — 18  A.D. 

9  close  of  Livy’s 

History 

S  denotes  historians  who  wrote  in  Greek . 


CHAPTER  X. 


LATIN  SCHOLARSHIP  FROM  THE  DEATH  OF  ENNIUS 
(169  B.C.)  TO  THE  AUGUSTAN  AGE. 


The  Latin  alphabet  was  (either  directly  or  indirectly)  borrowed 
at  an  early  date  from  the  Greek  colonists  of  Magna  Greek  influ - 
Graecia;  and  Latin  literature,  which  is  best  regarded  ence  before  169 
as  beginning  with  the  close  of  the  First  Punic  War 
(241  k.c.),  was  founded  mainly  on  Greek  models.  Its  earliest 
writers  were  not  natives  of  Rome  ;  they  were  not  even  natives 
of  Latium.  Thus  the  first  of  Latin  poets  was  the  Greek  Andro- 
nicus  (c.  284 — c.  204),  afterwards  known  as  L.  Livius  Andronicus, 
who  taught  Greek  and  Latin  in  Rome,  and  produced  in  rude 
Saturnian  verse  a  rendering  of  the  Odyssey  which  was  still  in  use 
as  a  text-book  in  the  youth  of  Horace  (. Ep .  ii  1,  65).  He  also 
translated  Greek  plays  into  Latin,  in  metres  approximating  to 
those  of  the  Greek  originals,  and  with  a  special  preference  for 
plays  connected  with  the  tale  of  Troy.  The  first  of  these  plays 
was  exhibited  about  240  b.c.  Next  in  order  is  Naevius  ( c .  264 — 
194),  a  native  of  Campania,  but  of  Latin  descent,  who  exhibited 
in  235  b.c.  the  first  of  many  plays  of  Greek  origin.  Late  in  life 
he  produced  in  the  old  Saturnian  measure  an  important  poem  on 
the  First  Punic  War,  parts  of  which  were  imitated  in  the  Aeneid 
of  Virgil.  In  the  four  Saturnian  lines  of  his  epitaph,  he  is  so 
conscious  of  his  position  as  a  Latin  poet,  and  so  forgetful  of  his 
debt  to  Greece,  that  he  describes  his  loss  as  lamented  not  by 
the  foreign  ‘  Muses  ’  but  by  the  native  Italian  Camenae,  adding 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


1 68 


that  on  his  death  the  old  Latin  tongue  ceased  to  be  spoken  in 
Rome. 


‘Mortales  immortales  flere  si  foret  fas, 

Flerent  Divae  Camenae  Naevium  poetam; 
Itaque,  postquam  est  Orcino  traditus  thesauro, 
Obliti  sunt  Romai  loquier  Latina  lingua’1. 


Naevius  is  followed  by  Ennius  (239 — 169),  the  native  of  a 
small  town  in  Calabria,  who  was  as  familiar  with  Greek  and  Oscan 
as  with  Latin2.  By  a  curious  irony  of  fortune  it  was  Cato,  the 
pertinacious  opponent  of  Greek  influence,  who  prompted  Ennius 
to  settle  in  Rome  (204  b.c.),  where  he  gave  lessons  in  Latin  and 
Greek.  In  his  tragedies  he  was  largely  indebted  to  Greek 
originals.  In  his  great  epic  poem  on  the  history  of  Rome, 
known  as  the  Anna/es,  he  discarded  the  old  Saturnian  measure 
for  the  Greek  hexameter,  casting  contempt  on  the  rude  versifica¬ 
tion  of  his  predecessors  : — 

Others  have  told  the  tale 
In  verses  sung  of  yore  by  Fauns  and  Bards, 

Ere  my  own  time,  when  none  as  yet  had  climbed 
The  Muses’  cliffs  or  learnt  the  lore  of  song3. 

The  new  metre  was  further  elaborated  by  Lucretius,  who  pays 
his  predecessor  the  noble  tribute  of  having  been  ‘the  first  to 
bring  down  from  lovely  Helicon  a  crown  of  leaf  unfading,  destined 
to  flourish  in  fame  amid  the  nations  of  Italy’4;  and  it  was  tuned 
to  new  harmonies  of  cadence  by  Virgil,  who  in  his  Aeneid  not 
merely  borrows  here  and  there  from  the  earlier  poet,  but  is  also 
imbued  throughout  with  his  national  spirit.  It  was  characteristic 
of  Ennius  to  write  an  inscription  for  his  own  bust,  not  in  the 
Saturnian  measure  of  old  Rome  but  in  the  elegiac  couplet  lately 
imported  from  Greece. 


‘Nemo  me  lacrimis  decoret,  nec  funera  fletu 
Faxit.  Cur?  Volito  vivu’  per  ora  virum’5. 


The  poet  who  had  done  Latin  literature  the  great  service  of 
supplying  it  with  a  new  epic  metre,  also  took  an  interest  in  minor 
points  of  scholarship,  such  as  grammar  and  spelling,  and  is  said  to 


1  Gellius,  i  23. 

3  Cic.  Brutus  71,  76;  Orator  171. 
5  Cic.  Tusc.  Disp.  i  34. 


2  ib.  xvii  17. 

4  Lucr.  i  1 1 7. 


X.]  GREEK  INFLUENCE  IN  LATIN  LITERATURE.  l6g 

have  invented  a  system  of  shorthand1.  All  the  three  early  poets 
above  mentioned,  Andronicus,  Naevius  and  Ennius,  wrote  comedies 
as  well  as  tragedies,  but  their  comedies  were  exclusively  of  the 
kind  called  palliatae ,  plays  ‘  dressed  in  the  Greek  mantle  \  The 
school  of  Ennius  claims  Pacuvius,  his  sister’s  son,  the  author  of 
twelve  tragedies  founded  on  the  legends  of  Greece,  and  modelled 
in  one  case  on  Sophocles  and  in  another  on  Euripides.  Greek 
originals  belonging  to  the  New  Attic  Comedy  of  Philemon,  Di- 
philus  and  Menander,  were  the  models  followed  by  Plautus  (254 — 
184)  and  by  Terence  (185 — 159).  Intermediate  in  time  between 
Plautus  and  Terence  is  Caecilius,  who  died  in  168  b.c.  (one  year 
after  the  death  of  Ennius,  and  two  years  before  the  production  of 
the  Andria ),  leaving  to  the  literature  of  his  country  some  forty 
comedies,  the  titles  of  all  of  which  are  suggestive  of  Greek  originals. 
The  debt  of  Latin  literature  to  Greek  in  epic  and  dramatic  poetry 
was  also  extended  to  history.  The  earliest  of  Roman  historians, 
Q.  Fabius  Pictor  (born  c.  254  b.c.),  who  belonged  to  the  age  of 
Naevius  and  Ennius,  wrote  in  Greek,  and  the  same  is  said 
(whether  truly  or  not)  of  his  younger  contemporary,  L.  Cincius 
Alimentus  (praetor  in  210  b.c.)2.  Greek  was  certainly  the  lan¬ 
guage  in  which  A.  Postumius  Albinus  wrote  the  History  of  Rome 
which  he  dedicated  to  Ennius3.  Foremost  among  the  Roman 
nobles  in  the  study  of  Greek  was  C.  Sulpicius  Galus,  who  pre¬ 
sided  as  praetor  at  the  performance  of  a  play  of  Ennius  in  the 
year  of  the  poet’s  death4,  and  who  fought  in  the  battle  of  Pydna 
and  predicted  the  eclipse  of  the  moon  which  immediately  pre¬ 
ceded  it5. 

The  defeat  of  the  Macedonian  king,  Perseus,  by  Lucius 
Aemilius  Paullus  at  the  battle  of  Pydna  (168  b.c.)  marks  the 

1  Teuffel’s  History  of  Roman  Literature ,  ed.  Schwabe,  trans.  by  G.  C.  W. 
Warr,  ed.  1900,  p.  127  and  §  104,  5.  Two  books  de  litteris  sy llabisque  and  de 
metris  are  attributed  to  a  later  Ennius  (Suet.  Gram.  1),  who  may  also  be  the 
author  of  the  system  of  shorthand  mentioned  by  Isidore,  Orig.  i  22,  vulgares 
notas  Ennius  primus  invenit.  Cp.  M.  Schanz,  Geschichte  der  Romischen  Litte- 
ratur  (in  I  wan  Muller’s  Handbuch),  §  39  ult. 

2  Dion.  Hal.  Ant.  Rom.  i  6  (cp.  H.  Nettleship,  Essays,  i  341,  and 
Mommsen,  Hist,  of  Ro?ne ,  Book  III  c.  xiv  note). 

3  Teuffel,  §  127,  1. 

4  Cic.  Brutus  78. 


5  Liv.  XLIV  37. 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


170 


beginning  of  a  new  epoch,  and  several  incidents  of  literary  interest 
are  connected  with  that  event.  The  conqueror  of  Pydna,  on  his 
visit  to  Olympia,  standing  before  the  Zeus  of  Pheidias,  knew 
enough  of  the  Homeric  poems  to  declare  that  the  sculptor  must 
have  derived  his  inspiration  from  Homer ;  and  Aemilius  Paullus 
was  apparently  the  theme  of  the  only  truly  Roman  play  mentioned 
among  the  works  of  Pacuvius  (220 — 132),  the  nephew  of  Ennius. 
Again,  the  battle  of  Pydna  and  the  consequent  predominance  of 
Rome  in  the  Greek  world  led  to  the  expatriation  of  1000  men  of 
mark  among  the  Achaeans,  who  were  scattered  among  the  Etrus¬ 
can  towns.  After  dwindling  in  seventeen  years  to  300,  they  were 
restored  to  their  native  land  with  Polybius,  the  foremost  of  the 
exiles,  who  afterwards  returned  to  Rome  to  renew  his  friendship 
with  the  younger  Scipio,  and  ultimately  to  tell  the  story  of  the 
conquests  of  Rome  from  the  beginning  of  the  Second  Punic  War 
to  the  fall  of  Carthage  and  of  Corinth  in  146.  Further,  the  Greek 
library  of  the  king  defeated  at  Pydna  was  reserved  for  the  use  of 
the  conqueror’s  sons,  the  second  of  whom  was  the  future  con¬ 
queror  of  Carthage,  famous  in  literature  as  the  centre  of  the 
£  Scipionic  circle  ’.  And,  finally,  the  victory  of  Pydna  led  to  a 
further  expansion  of  Greek  influence  in  Latin  literature  by  bring¬ 
ing  to  Rome  in  the  person  of  Crates  of  Mallos,  and  probably  in 
the  train  of  those  who  came  to  congratulate  the  Romans  on  their 
victory,  the  foremost  representative  of  the  school  of  Pergamon. 

Our  authority  for  the  visit  of  Crates  and  its  consequences  is 
the  treatise  of  Suetonius  De  Grammaticis.  He  begins  that  treatise 
with  the  remark  that  in  earlier  times,  while  Rome  was  still  uncivil¬ 
ised  and  engrossed  in  war,  and  was  not  yet  in  the  enjoyment  of 
any  large  amount  of  leisure  for  the  liberal  arts,  the  study  of 
literature  (. grammatica )  was  not  in  use,  much  less  was  it  in  esteem. 
The  beginnings  of  that  study,  he  adds,  were  unimportant,  as  its 
earliest  teachers,  who  were  poets  and  half-Greeks  (namely  Livius 
Andronicus  and  Ennius,  who  were  stated  to  have  taught  in  both 
languages  at  Rome  and  elsewhere),  limited  themselves  to  trans¬ 
lating  Greek  authors  or  reciting  anything  which  they  happened 
to  have  composed  in  Latin.  After  adding  that  the  two  books  on 
letters  and  syllables  and  also  on  metres  ascribed  to  Ennius  were 
justly  attributed  to  a  later  writer  of  the  same  name,  he  states  that, 


X.] 


ACCIUS.  LUCILIUS. 


171 


Accius 


in  his  own  opinion,  the  first  to  introduce  the  study  of  literature 
into  Rome  was  Crates  of  Mallos,  who,  during  his  accidental 
detention  in  Rome,  gave  many  recitations  and  lectures  which 
aroused  an  interest  in  the  subject1.  We  are  further  informed 
that  the  example  set  by  Crates  led  to  the  publication  in  seven 
books  of  a  new  edition  of  the  epic  of  Naevius  on  the  First  Punic 
War,  and  to  the  public  recitation  of  the  Annals  of  Ennius ;  and 
also  (two  generations  later)  to  the  recitation  of  the  satires  of 
Lucilius.  The  text  of  Ennius  was  emended  not  long  after  his 
death  by  Octavius  Lampadio2. 

The  death  of  Ennius  and  the  visit  of  Crates  were  immediately 
preceded  by  the  birth  of  L.  Accius  (170  b.c.),  who 
was  among  the  first  of  the  Romans  who  travelled  in 
Asia  Minor,  and  was  also  famous  as  the  author  of  numerous 
tragedies  on  the  tale  of  Troy.  In  the  history  of  Scholarship  he 
concerns  us  only  as  the  author  of  a  history  of  Greek  and  Roman 
poetry,  especially  that  of  the  drama,  written  in  Sotadean  verse, 
under  the  name  of  Didascalica ,  a  title  probably  suggested  by  the 
81 SacTKaXcaL  of  Aristotle3.  He  was  the  first  to  discuss  the  genuine¬ 
ness  of  certain  plays  wrongly  assigned  to  Plautus4.  Among  the 
peculiarities  of  his  orthography  we  are  told  that  he  never  used  the 
letters  Y  and  Z,  and  that,  when  A  and  E  and  U  were  long,  he 
denoted  the  fact  by  writing  them  double5.  His  interest  in  these 
subjects  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  Varro  dedicated  to  him  the 
treatise  de  antiquitate  litterarum* .  The  innovations  in  language 
and  spelling  introduced  by  Accius  are  ridiculed  by 
Lucilius  (180 — 103  b.c.),  who,  besides  discussing 
points  of  orthography  and  prosody,  satirises  the  bombastic  language 
of  the  Latin  tragedians,  criticises  even  Homer  and  Euripides,  and 
takes  his  contemporaries  to  task  for  their  provincialisms  and  also 


Lucilius 


1  See  p.  157.  It  is  assumed  by  Mommsen  (Bk  iv  c.  12)  that  the  Homeric 
poems  were  the  theme  of  these  lectures.  On  this  there  is  no  evidence,  but 
Homer  was  certainly  a  main  subject  of  the  literary  studies  of  Crates. 

2  Gellius,  xviii  5,  n. 

3  Madvig,  Opusc.  i  87  f  (p.  70  f,  ed.  1887);  Hermann,  Opusc.  viii  390; 
Lachmann,  Kl.  Schriflen  ii  67. 

4  Gellius,  iii  3,  9. 

5  Mar.  Viet.  Gram.  Lat.  6,  8 ;  Ritschl,  Opusc.  iv  142. 

6  Teuffel,  §  134,  7  and  11;  Schanz,  §§  49,  50. 


172 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


for  their  affected  imitation  of  Greek  phraseology1.  Lucilius  was 
succeeded  by  an  epigrammatic  poet  less  known  to  fame,  Porcius 
Licinus,  the  author  of  a  trochaic  poem  on  the  history  of  Roman 
literature,  in  the  course  of  which  he  insisted  on  the  lateness  of  the 
origin  of  Roman  poetry  in  the  oft-quoted  lines  : 

‘Poenico  bello  secundo  Musa  pinnato  gradu 
Intulit  se  bellicosam  in  Romuli  gentem  feram’2. 

Among  the  younger  contemporaries  of  Accius  and  the  pre¬ 
cursors  of  Varro  was  Q.  Valerius  of  Sora  (born  c.  154),  a  man  of 
distinction  in  linguistic  and  antiquarian  research.  When  Varro 
was  asked  the  meaning  of  favisae  Capitolinae,  he  admitted  that  he 
knew  nothing  of  the  origin  of  the  word  favisae  and  took  refuge  in 
quoting  the  opinion  of  Valerius  to  the  effect  that  favisae  was  a 
corruption  of  flavisae  an/d  meant  the  same  as  thesauri 3. 

The  foremost  scholar  of  this  age  was  L.  Aelius  Stilo  Praeco- 
ninus  ( c .  1=54 — c.  74  b.c.)  of  Lanuvium,  a  Roman 

Stilo  \  1  ^  / 

knight,  who  read  the  plays  of  Plautus  and  others 
with  younger  men  such  as  Varro  and  Cicero.  He  owed  the  name 
of  Praeconinus  to  his  father’s  occupation  as  a  praeco,  and  that 
of  Stilo  (or  ‘Penman’)  to  his  skill  in  writing  speeches  for  members 
of  the  Roman  aristocracy4.  We  find  him  designated  litteris  orna- 
tissimus  by  Varro,  as  quoted  by  Gellius  (i  18,  2),  who  himself 
describes  him  as  doctissimus  eorum  temporum ,  adding  that  Varro 
and  Cicero  followed  his  example  in  refraining  from  the  use  of 
novissimum  in  the  sense  of  extremum  (ih.  x  21,  2).  He  is  charac¬ 
terised  by  Cicero  in  the  Brutus  (205)  as  a  man  of  the  profoundest 
learning  in  Greek  and  Latin  literature,  and  as  an  accomplished 
critic  of  ancient  writers  and  of  Roman  antiquities  in  their  intel¬ 
lectual  as  well  as  in  their  historical  and  political  aspects.  His 
legal  and  antiquarian  pursuits  are  noticed  in  the  De  Oratoreh. 
His  grammatical  and  especially  his  etymological  inquiries  were 
partly  inspired  by  his  devotion  to  the  Stoic  philosophy.  He 
appears  to  have  been  an  industrious  writer,  and  much  of  his 
lore  passed  into  the  pages  of  Varro  and  of  Verrius  Flaccus, 
of  Pliny  the  elder  and  of  Gellius.  His  writings  included  a 

1  Teuffel,  §  143,  7.  2  Gellius,  xvii  21,  45. 

3  ib.  ii  10,  3  (Teuffel,  §  147,  1).  4  Suet.  Gram.  3. 

5  i  193,  Aeliana  (Madvig  for  aliena)  studia. 


X.] 


Q.  VALERIUS.  STILO.  VARRO. 


173 


commentary  on  the  Carmina  Saliorum1 ;  a  critical  list  of  the  plays 
of  Plautus,  in  which  he  recognised  25  plays  as  genuine,  and  in 
connexion  with  which  he  possibly  passed  the  encomium  on  the 
style  of  Plautus  quoted  by  Varro,  to  the  effect  that,  had  the 
Muses  wished  to  speak  in  Latin,  they  would  have  used  the 
language  of  Plautus2.  He  also  wrote  a  treatise  on  axiomatic 
statements  (77 -epl  a^iw^cnw)  apparently  connected  with  the  Syntax 
of  the  Stoics,  which  Gellius  (xvi  8,  2)  found  after  diligent  search 
in  the  Library  in  the  temple  of  Peace ;  an  edition  of  the  works  of 
Q.  Metellus  Numidicus,  whom  he  accompanied  into  exile  in 
100  b.c.  ;  probably  also  an  antiquarian  work  on  the  laws  of 
the  XII  Tables,  and  lastly  a  glossary  including  articles  on  etymo¬ 
logical,  antiquarian  and  historical  subjects3.  The  Satires  of 
Lucilius  and  the  Annals  of  L.  Coelius  Antipater  were  dedicated 
to  Stilo.  Among  the  scholars  who  succeeded  Stilo4  were  L.  Plotius 

!Gallus  and  Saevius  Nicanor,  early  teachers  of  Latin  rhetoric  and 
literature  respectively ;  Aurelius  Opilius,  a  student  of  Plautus ; 
Antonius  Gnipho,  a  commentator  on  the  Annals  of  Ennius ; 
M.  Pompilius  Andronicus,  who  wrote  criticisms  on  the  Annals, 
published  by  Orbilius  ;  Servius  Clodius,  who  married  the  daughter 
and  stole  some  of  the  papers  of  Stilo,  and  is  described  as  the 
author  of  a  catalogue  of  the  genuine  plays  of  Plautus5;  and 
lastly  Staberius  Eros,  the  instructor  of  Brutus  and  Cassius,  whom 
Pliny  the  elder6  calls  with  some  exaggeration  cotiditor  grammaticae. 

Stilo’s  most  famous  pupil,  M.  Terentius  Varro  (116 — 27  b.c.), 
is  characterised  by  Cicero 7  as  diligent  is  simus  investi¬ 
gator  antiquitatis ,  by  Quintilian8  as  vir  Romanorum 
eruditissimus ,  and  by  St  Augustine  as  one  who  had  read  so  much 

1  Varro,  Z.  Z.  vii  2;  cp.  Festus  s.v.  manuos,  mo  lucrum, ,  fescia,  quoted  by 
Suringar,  Historia  Critica  Scholiastarum  Latinorum ,  i  29. 

2  Quint,  x  I,  99. 

3  Goetz  in  Pauly-Wissowa,  i  532  f.  Cp.  Mommsen,  Hist,  of  Rome ,  Bk  iv 
c.  12  and  13;  Teuffel,  §  148;  Schanz,  §  76. 

4  Suet.  Grain.  3,  5 — 8  etc.  Teuffel,  §  159;  Schanz.  §§  194 — 6. 

5  Gellius,  iii  3,  1.  Cp.  Cic.  ad  Fam.  ix  16,  4  (to  Paetus),  Servius,  frater 
tuus,  quern  litteratissimum  fuisse  iudico,  facile  diceret  ‘hie  versus  Plauti  non 
est;  hie  est’,  quod  tritas  aures  haberet  notandis  generibus  poetarum  et  consue- 
tudine  legendi. 

6  xxxv  199.  7  Brutus  60.  8  x  1,  95. 


174 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


that  one  wondered  he  had  any  time  left  for  writing,  and  had 
written  so  much  that  one  might  well  believe  that  scarcely  any  one 
could  have  read  the  whole  of  his  works1.  His  books  numbered 
as  many  as  620,  belonging  to  74  separate  works.  They  included 
xli  books  Antiquitatum  rerum  humanarum  et  divinarum,  with 
other  antiquarian  works  de  vita  and  de  gente  populi  Romani ,  a 
book  of  ‘origins’  called  Aetia  (like  the  Ama  of  Callimachus),  and 
a  treatise  on  Trojan  families  and  on  the  Roman  tribes.  His 
writings  on  literary  history  comprised  works  on  Plautus2  and  on 
the  drama,  on  poetry  and  on  style,  with  three  books  on  Libraries ; 
but  unhappily  they  have  not  survived,  and  there  is  nothing  to 
show  that  they  were  seriously  concerned  with  literary  criticism. 
His  grammatical  writings  included  xxv  books  de  Lingua  Latina, 
of  which  v — x  (published  before  43  b.c.)  are  extant ;  11 — vn  were 
on  etymology ;  vm — xvi  on  inflexion,  analogy  and  anomaly ;  and 
xvn — xxv  on  syntax;  also  a  book  on  the  origin  of  the  Latin 
language,  three  books  on  analogy  {de  similiiudine  verborum),  and 
four  de  utilitate  sermonis.  Further  he  was  the  author  of  the  first 
encyclopaedic  work  in  Latin  on  the  ‘liberal  arts’.  Under  the 
name  of  disciplinarmn  libri  novem ,  it  comprised  (1)  grammar, 
(2)  logic,  (3)  rhetoric,  (4)  geometry,  (5)  arithmetic,  (6)  astronomy, 
(7)  music,  (8)  medicine,  (9)  architecture,  the  first  seven  of  which 
were  the  seven  liberal  arts  of  Augustine3  and  Martianus  Capella, 
afterwards  represented  by  the  trivium  and  the  quadrivium  of  the 
educational  system  of  the  Middle  Ages.  His  poetical  works  in¬ 
cluded  certain  saturae  Menippeae ,  of  which  fragments  remain. 

Lastly  there  were  his  three  books  de  Re  Rustica 4.  A  large 

•  — 

1  De  Civ.  Dei ,  vi  2.  Much  the  same  was  afterwards  said  of  St  Augustine 
by  Isidore  (vii  179  ed.  1803),  ‘mentitur  qui  te  totum  legisse  fatetur’. 

2  The  21  plays  recognised  by  Varro  were  called  the  Fabulae  Varronianae 
(Gellius  iii  3,  3),  which  may  safely  be  identified  with  the  20  extant  plays  and 
the  Vidularia,  of  which  fragments  only  have  survived  in  the  Ambrosian 
Palimpsest  (cent.  v). 

3  Retract,  i  6,  where  however  ‘philosophy’  is  substituted  for  ‘astronomy’. 

4  Teuffel,  §§  164 — 9.  Cp.  Ritschl,  Opusc.  iii  419 — 505;  Mommsen,  Hist, 
of  Rome ,  Bk  v  c.  12  ;  Wordsworth’s  Early  Latin ,  pp.  356 — 8;  and  Nettleship, 
ii  146  f ;  also  Schanz,  §§  183 — 193;  Wilmanns,  De  Varronis  libris  gramma- 
ticis ,  pp.  226,  1864;  and  Reitzenstein,  Varro  u?id  Johannes  Mauropus  von 
Euchaita ,  eine  Studie  zur  Geschichte  der  Sprachwissenschaft ,  pp.  97,  1901. 


X.] 


ANALOGY  AND  ANOMALY. 


175 


portion  of  this  varied  literary  activity  is  the  theme  of  Cicero’s 
glowing  eulogy  in  the  Academica  (1  §  cj). 

But  (apart  from  fragments)  the  only  works  which  have  survived 
are  the  books  de  Re  Rustica ,  and  six  books  de  Lingua  Latina. 
Books  v — xxv  of  the  latter  were  dedicated  to  Cicero,  who  had 
waited  impatiently  for  the  fulfilment  of  Varro’s  promise  to  dedicate 
to  him  an  important  work,  and  who  thus  received  a  recognition  of 
the  handsome  compliment  paid  by  himself  in  dedicating  to  Varro 
the  second  edition  of  his  Acadetnica  (45  b.c.).  Varro’s  treatise  is 
the  earliest  extant  Roman  work  on  grammar.  The  first  three  of 
the  surviving  books  are  on  Etymology,  book  v  being  on  names  of 
places,  vi  on  terms  denoting  time,  and  vn  on  poetic  expressions. 
To  ourselves  the  value  of  these  books  lies  in  their  citations  from 
the  Latin  poets,  and  not  in  their  marvellous  etymologies.  But 
Varro  is  right  in  regarding  meridies  as  standing  for  medius  (and 
not  menus )  dies,  and  in  connexion  with  this  word  he  records  the 
interesting  fact  that  he  had  himself  seen  the  form  in  D  carved  on 
a  sun-dial  at  Praeneste1.  The  next  three  books  are  concerned 
with  the  controversy  on  Analogy  and  Anomaly :  vm  on  the  argu¬ 
ments  against  Analogy,  ix  on  those  against  Anomaly,  and  x  on 
Varro’s  own  view  of  Analogy. 


In  the  first  of  these  books  we  have  arguments  and  illustrations  in  favour  of 

the  charms  of  variety :  ex  dissimilitudine  plus  voluptatis,  quarn 

ex  similitudine ,  saepe  capitur ;  hence  it  may  be  inferred  verbo-  .  Anal°gy.  and 
,  .  .  .  Anomaly  in 

rum  dissimilitudinem ,  quae  sit  in  co/isuetudine,  non  esse  vitan-  Varro 
dam  (31-32).  In  speech,  it  is  urged  by  the  anomalist,  there 
is  no  rule ;  the  inflexions  of  similar  words  are  sometimes  similar,  as,  from 
bonurn  and  malum ,  bono  and  malo ;  sometimes  dissimilar,  as,  from  lupus  and 
lepus ,  hipo  and  lepori ;  again  the  inflexions  of  dissimilar  words  are  sometimes 
dissimilar,  as  Priamus ,  Paris ,  and  Priamo,  Pari ;  sometimes  similar,  as 
Iuppiter ,  ovis,  and  Iovi,  ovi.  If  analogy  is  not  universal,  argues  the  anomalist, 
there  is  no  such  thing  as  true  analogy.  The  book  ends  with  many  examples 
of  irregularity  in  declension,  in  the  degrees  of  comparison,  and  in  diminutives 
and  proper  names.  The  next  book  (ix),  in  arguing  against  anomaly,  begins 
with  the  suggestion  that  that  nobilis  grammaticus,  Crates,  in  accepting  the  view 
of  Chrysippus,  and  in  attacking  that  of  Aristarchus,  had  misunderstood  both. 
When  Chrysippus  wrote  on  anomaly,  he  meant  to  show  that  similar  things 
are  often  denoted  by  dissimilar  words,  and  dissimilar  things  by  similar  words, 
which  is  true.  Again,  when  Aristarchus  wrote  on  analogy,  he  held  that  we 
must  accept  the  inflexion  or  derivation  of  certain  words  as  a  pattern  (or 

1  L.  L.  vi  4. 


1 76 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Cicero 


paradigm)  for  the  rest,  so  far  as  custom  admits  (§1).  Varro  is  probably  wrong 
in  describing  Crates  as  having  mistaken  the  meaning  of  Chrysippus  and  Aristar¬ 
chus,  and,  when  he  himself  admits  the  claims  of  consuetudo ,  he  virtually  gives 
up  the  case  for  strict  analogy.  All  that  the  anomalist  maintained  was  that 
analogy  very  often  broke  down,  and  he  accordingly  concluded  that  it  was  not 
analogy  but  consuetudo  that  was  the  guiding  principle  of  language.  As  Varro 
was  reluctant  to  call  himself  an  anomalist,  he  takes  refuge  in  the  expedient  of 
bringing  forward  a  third  party,  consisting  of  those  who  in  loquendo  partim 
sequi  iube7it  nos  consuetudinem ,  partim  rationem.  So  long  as  partim  remains 
undefined,  this  description  comes  to  nothing,  as  either  of  the  two  contending 
parties  might  claim  it  as  representing  their  views.  Varro  regards  this  third 
party  as  approximating  to  his  own  view  of  analogy;  at  the  same  time  he 
regards  that  party  as  open  to  the  same  objection  as  the  anomalists: — consuetudo 
et  analogia  coniunctiores  sunt  inter  se,  quarn  ii  credunt  (ix  2)1. 

Cicero’s  view  agrees  with  that  of  Varro.  He  is  an  analogist,  who  never¬ 
theless  respects  consuetudo.  As  a  practical  orator  it  would 
have  been  impossible  for  him  to  disregard  it.  So  he  keeps 
to  himself  his  knowledge  of  the  scientifically  correct  forms,  and  is  content  to 
follow  popular  usage.  He  knew  that  in  earlier  Latin  there  had  been  no 
aspirate  in  pulcros ,  Cetegos,  triumpos ,  Kartaginem,  but  he  followed  popular 
usage  in  introducing  the  aspirate  ( Orator ,  160).  He  uses  confidens  in  the 
sense  of  ‘shameless’,  although  he  knows  it  is  wrong  ( Tusc .  Disp.  iii  14);  he 
finds  no  fault  with  scripsere ,  although  he  holds  that  scripserunt  alone  is  right 
( Orator ,  157).  Usum  loquendi  populo  concessi ,  scientiam  mihi  resei~vavi  [ ib .  160). 
Cicero  does  not  follow  euphony  for  its  own  sake,  but  simply  as  part  of  popular 
usage:  consuetudini  auribus  indulgenti  libenter  obsequor  [ib.  157)2. 

Analogy  was  the  theme  of  a  work  by  Caesar,  written  while  he  was  crossing 
the  Alps3,  probably  in  55  B.c.  It  was  dedicated  to  Cicero4, 
and  consisted  of  two  books  (r)  on  the  alphabet  and  on  words, 
and  (2)  on  irregularities  of  inflexion  in  nouns  and  verbs.  It  was  in  this  work 
that  Caesar  laid  down  the  memorable  rule  :  ut  tamquam  scopulum ,  sic  fugias 
inauditum  atque  insolens  verbumb.  He  thus  admitted  the  claim  of  consuetudo 
even  in  a  work  characteristic  of  his  ruling  passion  for  reducing  everything  to 
law  and  order  and  uniformity.  Similarly  the  decay  and  the  revival  of  words  is 
made  by  Horace  to  depend  on  us  us,  quern  penes  arbitrium  est  et  ius  et  norma 
loquendi  [A.  P.  71  f ). 

The  conflict  between  the  analogists  and  the  anomalists  continued  beyond 
the  limits  of  time  assigned  to  this  chapter.  To  complete  our  survey  of  the 
subject,  it  may  here  be  added  that  Pliny  the  elder  (25  — 
79  A.D.),  among  whose  works  were  dubii  sermonis  libri  octo6> 
was  an  analogist,  but  he  allowed  consuetudo  its  full  rights  [consuetudini  et 


Caesar 


Pliny 


5  an  analogist,  but  ne  allowed  consuetudo  its  lull  rignts  yconsuemair 

1  Steinthal,  Sprachwissenschaft ,  ii  130 — 1362.  Cp.  Reitzenstein,  l.c. 
-65.  2  Steinthal,  ii  154. 

5  0  '  ^  "  4  Brutus  253;  Gellius,  xix  8,  3. 

6  Plin.  Ep.  iii  5,  5. 


44—65. 

3  Suet.  Caes.  56. 
5  Gellius,  i  10,  4 


X.] 


LITERARY  CRITICISM. 


177 


Quintilian 


suavitati  aurium  censet  summam  esse  tribuendam ),  holding  esse  quideni  rationem , 
sed  tnulta  ia?7i  consuetudine  super arix.  Although  originally  language  may  have 
been  entirely  guided  by  analogy,  consuetudo  is  the  natural  enemy  of  ratio  and 
often  drives  it  from  the  field.  Pliny  thus  recognises  the  rights  of  consuetudo 
far  more  openly  than  Varro.  He  also  recognises  the  force  of  authority ,  and 
accepts  forms  sanctioned  veteri  dignitate.  Authority  and  antiquity  are  the 
constant  allies  of  anomalous  consuetudo ,  and  against  these  three  forces  analogy 
must  struggle  in  vain". 

Quintilian  ( c .  35 — 95  A.D. )  is  also  an  analogist,  but  he  limits  the  province 
of  analogy  to  deciding  in  cases  of  doubt  (i  6,  4).  With  Quin¬ 
tilian  analogy  rests  not  on  reason  but  on  precedent;  it  does 
not  legislate  on  language,  but  simply  observes  and  notes  its  laws  (ib.  16). 

A  century  later  in  Greek  literature  the  sceptical  physician,  Sextus  Empi¬ 
ricus,  who  flourished  between  180  and  200  A.D.,  was  a  spirited 
champion  of  anomaly.  He  ridicules  the  extreme  analogists  of  Empiricus 
his  day  as  ‘scholars  who,  although  scarcely  able  to  string  two 
words  together,  wanted  to  convict  of  barbarism  all  the  ancient  writers  who 
were  conspicuous  for  correctness  of  language  (eixppade  1a)  and  excellence  of 
Greek  (EWrjvKriuos),  e.g.  Thucydides,  Plato  and  Demosthenes  5  ( adv .  Math . 
i  98). 

The  struggle,  however,  between  the  two  principles  was  mainly  limited  to 
rather  more  than  one  century  before  and  one  century  after  our  era.  Under  the 
influence  of  the  Aristarchic  school  of  analogists,  grammatical  forms  were  in¬ 
vestigated  with  great  accuracy.  The  paradigms  of  grammar  were  the  result 
of  this  struggle,  which  gave  ‘  the  necessary  impulse  to  a  complete  analysis  of 
the  forms  of  language’3.  In  the  first  effort  to  reduce  the  facts  of  the  Greek 
language  to  order,  the  observation  of  the  vast  mass  of  regular  forms  led  to 
their  classification,  and  tempted  the  grammarian  to  endeavour  to  reduce  all 
irregularities  into  agreement  with  the  normal  types.  Such  was  the  work  of 
the  earlier  analogists.  We  may  say  of  them  that  they  held  a  brief  for  the 
‘rule’;  while  the  anomalists  showed  cause  for  the  ‘exception’.  The  net  result 
of  the  struggle  was  the  ultimate  recognition  of  the  fact  that  in  the  realm  of 
language,  as  in  the  world  of  nature,  uniformity  and  variety  are  inextricably 
intermingled  with  one  another. 


Literary  criticism  in  the  Roman  age  was  partly  borrowed  from 
Greek  sources  such  as  the  Poetic  and  Rhetoric  of 
Aristotle,  and  the  lost  treatise  On  Style  by  Theo-  criticism7 
phrastus.  It  may  also  have  been  influenced  by 
critics  such  as  Aristophanes  and  Aristarchus,  the  reputed  founders 
of  the  Alexandrian  ‘canon’  (p.  129  f),  while  the  Ars  Poetica  of 


S. 


1  Charisius,  i  p.  99.  2  Steinthal,  ii  155. 

3  Cp.  J.  Wordsworth’s  Early  Latin ,  pp.  653 — 4. 


12 


i;8 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Horace  included  among  its  sources  of  inspiration  a  lost  treatise  on 
poetical  composition  by  Neoptolemus  of  Parium1,  whose  date  is 
probably  between  that  of  Callimachus  and  Aristophanes2. 

Early  in  the  first  century  b.c.  we  find  a  ‘  canon  ’  of  ten  Latin 
comic  poets  drawn  up  by  Volcatius  Sedigitus ;  the  names  included 
are  Caecilius,  Plautus,  Naevius,  Licinius,  Atilius,  Terence,  Turpi- 
lius,  Trabea,  Lucius  and  Ennius3.  A  threefold  variety  of  style 
was  recognised  by  Varro  (as  by  Theophrastus);  and  Pacuvius 
was  taken  by  him  as  a  type  of  ubertas ,  Lucilius  of  gracilitas , 
Terence  of  mediocritas  in  the  good  sense  of  the  term4.  Literary 
criticisms  also  appeared  incidentally  in  his  saturae ,  where  he  says, 
in  one  passage,  that  the  palm  is  claimed  by  Caecilius  for  his  plots, 

by  Terence  for  his  delineation  of  character,  and  by  Plautus  for 

* 

his  dialogues ;  and,  in  another,  that  truth  to  character  is  the 
special  merit  of  Titinius,  Terence  and  Atta ;  while  the  excitement 
of  the  emotions  is  that  of  Trabea,  Atilius  and  Caecilius5.  The 
criticisms  on  ancient  poets  current  in  the  youth  of  Horace6  have 
been  attributed  to  Varro7. 

Literary  criticism  in  Cicero  (106 — 43  b.c.)  has  a  conventional 
and  borrowed  element,  as  in  the  frequent  comparison 
between  literature  and  the  arts  of  painting  and 
sculpture8.  In  this  he  had  been  preceded  by  Neoptolemus  and 
he  was  succeeded  by  Dionysius9  and  Quintilian10.  The  late 
Greek  criticism  also  produced  many  new  technical  terms,  several 
of  which  passed  into  the  Latin  of  the  Ciceronian  and  Augustan 
ages11.  The  critical  vocabulary  of  the  Latin  language  was  largely 
extended  by  Cicero,  who  shows  a  special  fondness  for  discriminat¬ 
ing  between  varieties  of  style  by  means  of  metaphors  borrowed 
either  from  moral  qualities  or  from  the  physiology  of  the  human 

1  Porphyrion  discussed  by  Nettleship,  Essays ,  i  173,  ii  46 — 48. 

2  Susemihl,  i  405.  3  Gellius,  xv  24. 

4  ib.  vi  (vii)  14,  8. 

5  Nettleship,  ii  50 — 3 ;  cp.  Saintsbury’s  History  of  Criticism ,  i  240  f. 

6  Ep.  ii  1,  55. 

7  Nettleship,  ii  52. 

8  Brutus  70,  75,  228,  261,  298;  Orator  36  (with  the  present  writer’s  Intro¬ 

duction ,  pp.  lxxi — lxxiii). 

9  De  Comp.  21,  De  Isocr.  2,  De  Isaeo  4. 

10  xii  10,  1 — 10. 


11  Nettleship,  ii  56. 


X.] 


LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  CICERO. 


179 


body1.  Whenever  he  is  original  in  his  criticisms  on  poetry,  he 
has  a  marked  preference  for  the  grand  and  free  style  of  the  older 
poets,  such  as  Accius,  Ennius  and  Pacuvius.  In  his  criticisms  on 
oratorical  prose,  in  the  Brutus  and  the  Orator,  he  vindicates  his 
own  literary  principles  against  a  new  school,  that  of  the  Roman 
Atticists,  comprising  orators  like  Calvus,  whose  models  were 
Lysias  and  Thucydides.  As  a  test  of  the  truth  of  these  divergent 
views  he  lays  down  the  principle  that,  ‘given  time  and  opportunity, 
the  recognition  of  the  many  is  as  necessary  a  test  of  excellence  in 
an  artist  as  that  of  the  few’2.  A  great  style  must  therefore  ‘com¬ 
bine  all  the  elements  of  excellence  ’ 3.  Cicero’s  genius  as  a  critic 
is  revealed  in  his  review  of  the  styles  of  Galba  and  Gaius  Gracchus, 
of  Antonius,  Crassus  and  Scaevola,  of  Cotta  and  Sulpicius;  of 
Caesar,  Calidius  and  Hortensius4.  In  a  few  terse  phrases  he 
summarises  the  literary  qualities  of  the  speakers  whom  he  passes  in 
review,  displaying  a  fulness  of  insight,  a  perfect  mastery  of  thought, 
and  a  power  of  self-controlled  expression  standing  in  strong  con¬ 
trast  with  his  usual  prolixity.  In  the  De  Legibus  (i  5),  as  in  the 
De  Oratore  (ii  51  f),  history,  in  accordance  with  the  traditional 
Greek  view  dating  from  the  time  of  Ephorus  and  Theopompus,  the 
pupils  of  Isocrates,  is  regarded  as  a  branch  of  oratory.  The  idea 
of  a  painful  study  of  authorities  undertaken  with  the  simple  purpose 
of  ascertaining  the  truth,  is  unfamiliar  to  his  age.  It  might  have 
been  developed  among  the  philosophers  or  the  scholars  of  the  time, 
but  philosophy  turned  towards  ‘  problems  of  speculative  ethics, 
while  scholarship  satisfied  itself  with  verbal  and  textual  criticism’5. 
In  the  De  Republica  (iv  13)  Cicero  happily  describes  Comedy  as 
the  imitatio  vitae ,  the  speculum  consuetudinis ,  the  imago  veritatis. 
In  the  De  Oratore  (iii  27  f)  he  touches  on  the  varied  excellences 
of  Greek  and  Roman  poets  and  orators,  and  (ib.  149 — 207)  unfolds 
a  detailed  theory  of  beauty  of  speech  depending  either  on  words 
themselves  and  their  combinations  or  on  figures  of  speech  and 


1  Cp.  the  present  writer’s  notes  on  Cic.  Orator ,  §§  25,  76;  also  Causeret’s 
Ptude  (1886),  pp.  155 — 8,  and  Saintsbury,  i  220. 

2  Brutus  183  f  (Nettleship,  ii  58  f). 

3  De  Or.  iii  96  f,  ior. 

4  Brutus  §§  93,  125,  139,  143,  148,  201,  261,  274,  301. 

5  Nettleship,  ii  56 — 68. 


12 — 2 


i8o 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


thought.  In  the  Pro  Archia  he  shows  a  personal  interest  in 
eulogising  literature  in  the  presence  (as  we  know  from  the 
scholiast)  of  his  brother  Quintus.  He  also  supplies  us  with 
valuable  evidence  as  to  the  state  of  Greek  culture  in  Southern 
Italy,  and  also  in  Latium  and  Rome,  shortly  before  102  b.c.  1  In 
the  Letters  the  only  important  piece  of  literary  criticism  is  the 
much  discussed  phrase  in  which  Cicero  expresses  his  agreement 
with  his  brother  as  to  the  ‘  poems  ’  of  Lucretius  : — ‘  Lucretii 
poemata,  ut  scribis,  ita  sunt ;  multis  lu minibus  ingenii,  multae 
tamen  artis’  (ad  Quintum ,  ii  n),  where  it  has  (perhaps  unneces¬ 
sarily)  been  proposed  to  insert  a  non  either  before  multis  or  before 
multae 2.  It  is  disappointing  to  find  in  Cicero  so  vague  a  criticism 
of  the  merits  of  a  poet  who  had  done  him  the  honour  of  studying 
and  imitating  his  own  translation  of  Aratus3. 

The  Orator ,  which  supplies  some  of  the  best  examples  of 
Cicero’s  taste  as  a  literary  critic,  also  affords  us  valuable  evidence 
as  to  the  nature  and  extent  of  his  knowledge  of  the  philology  of 
the  Latin  language.  In  the  course  of  an  excursus  on  the  proper 
collocation  of  words,  in  accordance  with  the  laws  of  euphony 
(§§  146 — 162),  we  find  him  regarding  vexillum  as  the  earlier  form 
of  velu?n  (§  153)  instead  of  being  a  diminutive  of  it;  capsis  as 
standing  for  cape  si  vis  (§  154),  an  opinion  rightly  rejected  by 
Quintilian ;  and  the  compound  words  ignoti ,  ignavi  and  ignari, 
as  preferred  for  reasons  of  euphony  to  innoti,  innavi  and  innari 
(§  158),  whereas  gnoti,  gnavi  and  gnari  are  obviously  the  original 
forms  of  the  simple  words. 

Asinius  Pollio  (76  b.c. — 5  a.d.)  wrote  a  severe  criticism  on 
the  archaisms  of  Sallust4,  who  in  this  respect  was 
regarded  as  having  imitated  and  even  plagiarised 
from  the  elder  Cato5.  On  the  other  hand  he  expressed  a  very  high 
opinion  of  Cicero  : — ‘  huius  viri  tot  tantisque  operibus  mansuri  in 

1  Pro  Archia  5,  erat  Italia  turn  plena  Graecarum  artium  ac  disciplinarum, 
studiaque  haec  et  in  Latio  vehementius  turn  colebantur  quam  nunc  isdem  in 
oppidis,  et  hie  Romae  propter  tranquillitatem  rei  publicae  non  neglegebantur. 

2  Introd.  to  Munro’s  Liter,  vol.  i  pp.  313 — 5,  ed.  1873;  cp.  Saintsbury, 
pp.  214—7. 

3  Munro  on  Lucr.  v  619;  cp.  Mackail’s  Latin  Literature ,  p.  50. 

4  Suet.  Gram.  10.  5  Suet.  Aug.  86;  Quintilian  viii  3,  29. 


X.] 


CONTEMPORARIES  OF  CICERO. 


1 8 1 


omne  aevum  praedicare  de  ingenio  atque  industria  supervacuum 
est  ’  \ 

An  account  of  the  consulship  of  Cicero  was  written  in  Greek 
during  his  life-time  by  his  friend  Atticus1 2(io9 — 32), 
whose  libe r  annalis ,  a  chronological  work  covering  TitotlCUS  and 
seven  centuries  of  Roman  history 3,  is  probably  the 
source  of  the  Fasti  Capitolini  and  of  the  ‘  Chronograph  ’  of 
354  a.d.4  He  also  played  an  important  part  in  literature  as  the 
head  of  an  establishment  of  learned  slaves  engaged  as  copyists5. 
We  still  possess  the  Life  of  Atticus  by  Cornelius  Nepos,  while 
that  of  Cicero  is  unfortunately  lost.  Cicero’s  Life  was  also  written 
by  his  freedman  Tiro,  and  it  is  to  Atticus  and  Tiro  that  we  are 
doubtless  mainly  indebted  for  the  survival  of  his  works.  Tiro  is 
specially  named  in  connexion  with  the  Letters  and  the  Speeches6. 
He  wrote  several  works  on  the  Latin  language7,  and  invented  a 
system  of  shorthand,  which  was  carried  further  by  Philargyrus,  a 
freedman  of  Agrippa,  and  Aquila,  a  freedman  of  Maecenas,  and 
also  by  Seneca8.  After  flourishing  in  the  Carolingian  age,  it 
became  less  common  at  the  beginning  of  the  tenth  century,  and 
vanished  after  the  twelfth9. 

Among  the  younger  contemporaries  of  Cicero,  the  Neo- 
Pythagorean  P.  Nigidius  Figulus  ( c .  98 — 45  b.c.), 
the  praetor  of  58  b.c.,  was  ranked  by  a  later  age  pigufis1US 
as  second  to  Varro  in  learning10.  His  commentarii 
grammatici  dealt  with  grammar  in  general,  and  especially  with 
orthography,  synonyms,  and  etymology.  They  are  often  quoted 
by  Gellius,  who  complains  of  then*  being  more  obscure  and  less 
popular  than  the  corresponding  works  of  Varro11.  He  was  perhaps 


1  Seneca,  Suas.  vi  24. 

2  Ad  Att.  ii  41 ;  Nepos,  Atticus,  18. 

3  Nepos,  l.c.;  Cic.  Orator  120,  Brutus  14,  19. 

4  Schanz,  §116. 

5  Nepos,  l.c.,  13,  3  ;  Cic.  ad  Att.  xiii  21,  3  ;  44,  3;  Fronto,  Ep.  10.  Hul- 
leman’s  Atticus,  p.  173. 

6  Ad  Att.  xvi  5,  5;  Gellius,  i  7,  1 ;  xiii.  21,  16;  cp.  Quint,  x  7,  30. 

7  Gellius,  xiii  9,  2.  8  Isidore,  Orig.  i  21. 

9  Schanz,  §  178,  ult. 

10  Gellius,  iv  9,  r. 

11  xvii  7,  5;  xix  14,  3. 


182 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


L.  Ateius 
Praetextatus 


Valerius  Cato 


Grammatical 

terminology 


the  inventor  of  the  method  of  denoting  the  long  vowel  by  an 
apex1.  L.  Ateius  Praetextatus,  who  was  born  at 
Athens  and  became  a  Roman  freedman,  assumed 
(like  Erastosthenes)  the  name  of  Philologus.  He 
was  a  student  of  style  and  of  Roman  history,  and  a  friend  of 
Sallust  and  Asinius  Pollio2.  Valerius  Cato,  who 
had  a  great  reputation  as  a  teacher  of  young  noble¬ 
men  with  a  taste  for  poetry,  closed  his  life  in  extreme  poverty; 
but  even  the  satirical  lines  of  Bibaculus  unconsciously  do  him 
honour  by  comparing  him  as  a  summits  grammaticus  with  the 
scholars  of  Alexandria  and  Pergamon  : — en  cor  Zen o dot i,  en  iecur 
Cratetis 3. 

Latin  grammar  owes  its  terminology,  in  the  first  instance,  to 
Varro ;  and,  in  the  next,  to  Nigidius  Figulus.  In 
the  middle  of  the  first  century  b.c.  the  Gender  or 
genus  of  a  noun  or  nomen  substantivum  was  distin¬ 
guished  by  the  terms  virile ,  muliebre  and  neutrum  ( masculinum 
and  femininum  not  occurring  earlier  than  the  second  century 
a.d.)4.  The  Number  or  numerus  was  described  by  Varro  as 
either  singularis  or  multitudinis ,  while  pluralis  is  found  later  in 
Quintilian  (who  represents  the  teaching  of  Remmius  Palaemon), 
and  plurativus  in  Gellius.  A  Case  (as  with  the  Stoics)  might  be 
either  rectus  or  obliquus ;  the  casus  rectus  was  also  known  to  Varro 
as  the  casus  nominandei  or  nominativus ;  the  Genitive  was  called 
by  Varro  the  casus  patricus,  by  Nigidius  the  casus  interi'ogandi ; 
the  Dative  was  described  by  both  as  the  casus  dandi ,  while  gene- 
tivus  and  dativus  occur  in  Quintilian ;  the  Accusative  is  in  Varro 
the  casus  accusandei  or  accusativus ;  the  Vocative  the  casus  vocan- 
dei ,  while  vocativus  is  found  in  Gellius ;  the  Ablative,  recognised 
by  Quintilian,  possibly  owes  its  name  to  Caesar,  Varro’s  name  for 
it  being  the  sextus  or  Latinus  casus ,  as  it  was  not  found  in  Greek. 
The  Declensions  and  Conjugations  are  unrecognised  by  Varro. 
He  divides  each  of  the  three  times,  past,  present  and  future,  into 


1  Teuffel,  §  170;  Hiibner,  Romische  Litt.  §  45s  (p.  44  Mayor);  Mommsen, 
Hist,  of  Rotfie,  Bk  V  c.  12  ;  also  Schanz,  Rom.  Litt.,  §  181. 

2  Suet.  Gram.  10;  Schanz,  §  195,  5. 

3  ib.  11 ;  Teuffel,  §  200. 

4  First  found  in  Caesellius  Vindex  (Gellius  vi  (vii)  2). 


X.]  GRAMMAR.  LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  HORACE.  1 83 


a  tempus  infectum  and  a  tempus  perfectum  ;  but  he  knows  nothing 
of  any  technical  sense  of  modus  \ 

The  earliest  of  the  literary  criticisms  of  Horace  (65 — 8  B.c.) 
are  those  of  the  fourth  and  tenth  of  his  first  book 

Literary 

of  Satires  (35  b.c.).  He  there  asserts  his  own  prin-  criticism  in 

•  •  •  •  •  •  Horscc 

ciples  under  the  guise  of  a  polemic  against  Lucilius. 

His  predecessor’s  style,  he  says,  is  too  hasty  and  too  slovenly, 
while  the  Old  Attic  Comedy  is  too  narrow  in  its  scope  to  serve 
as  a  model  for  his  own  satura.  Poetry,  he  insists,  is  not  a  matter 
for  the  crowd;  it  is  the  gift  and  privilege  of  the  few1 2.  About 
19  b.c.  we  have  the  criticisms  of  his  Ars  Poetica ,  founded  in  part 
on  Greek  originals  and  prompted  apparently  by  a  desire  to  recall 
his  countrymen  from  the  critical  principles  of  the  Ciceronian  and 
the  Alexandrian  ages,  to  those  on  which  the  great  works  of  Hellas 
were  founded.  Mr  Saintsbury,  who  justly  describes  it  as  ‘the 
only  complete  example  of  literary  criticism  that  we  have  from  any 
Roman  ’,  criticises  its  desultoriness  and  its  arbitrary  convention¬ 
ality,  while  he  fully  recognises  its  brilliancy,  its  typical  spirit,  and 
its  practical  value3.  In  the  two  Epistles  of  the  Second  book 
Horace  discards  the  framework  of  Greek  works  and  Greek  texts, 
and  relies  on  his  own  genius.  In  poetry  he  insists  on  the  worth¬ 
lessness  of  mere  antiquity,  and  on  the  importance  of  perfect  finish. 
The  older  Latin  poets,  admired  by  Varro  and  Cicero,  are  more 
coldly  regarded  by  Horace,  while  they  meet  with  a  warmer  appre¬ 
ciation  in  Ovid4.  Virgil  and  Horace  became  classics  soon  after 
their  death,  driving  out  the  taste  for  the  older  poets,  and  finding 
admirers  and  imitators  in  Lucan  and  Persius  respectively. 

While  Virgil’s  Eclogues  and  Georgies  were  published  during  his 
life-time,  the  Aeneid  was  first  edited  by  Varius  and 
Tucca  after  his  death  (19  b.c.).  He  was  attacked  orvirgiiStUdy 
by  Carvilius  Pictor  in  his  Aeneidomastix ;  his  vitia , 
or  supposed  faults  of  style,  were  collected  by  Herennius ;  his 

1  Cp.  Lersch.  Sprachphilosophie,  ii  223 — 256;  Grafenhan,  ii  291 — 306; 
and  L.  Jeep,  Zur  Geschichte  von  den  Redetheilen  bei  den  Lateinischen  Gramma- 
tikern,  pp.  124 — 259. 

2  i  4,  40  and  71  :  Nettleship,  ii  70. 

3  Hist,  of  Criticism,  i  221 — 8. 

4  Amores,  i  15 — 19,  Tristia ,  ii  423;  Nettleship,  ii  70 — 73. 


1 84 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


furta,  or  alleged  plagiarisms,  by  Perellius  Faustus ;  and  his  trans¬ 
lations  from  the  Greek,  by  Octavius  Avitus ;  while  his  detractors 
were  answered  by  Asconius,  better  known  as  the  earliest  commen¬ 
tator  on  Cicero1.  The  first  to  expound  Virgil  in  the  schools  of 
Rome  was  a  freedman  of  Atticus,  named  Q.  Caecilius  Epirota, 
who  opened  a  school  after  the  death  of  his  second  patron,  the 
poet  Cornelius  Gallus  (27  b.c.)2.  Virgil  was  criticised  by  Hygi- 
nus,  the  librarian  of  the  Palatine  Library,  and  by  Cornutus,  the 
friend  of  Persius.  In  the  time  of  Quintilian3  and  Juvenal4  he 
shared  the  fate,  which  Horace5  had  feared  for  himself,  of  being  a 
textbook  for  use  in  schools.  The  first  critical  edition  of  Virgil 
was  that  of  Probus  in  the  time  of  Nero.  Among  his  interpreters 
were  Velius  Longus,  under  Trajan.;  Q,  Ter.  Scaurus,  under 
Hadrian;  Aemilius  Asper  (towards  the  end  of  the  2nd  century); 
and  Aelius  Donatus  (yf.  353  a.d.).  The  earliest  exta?it  commen¬ 
taries  are  those  in  the  Verona  scholia ,  including  quotations  from 
Cornutus,  Velius  Longus,  Asper,  and  Haterianus  (end  of  3rd 
cent.);  that  on  the  Eclogues  and  Georgies  bearing  the  name  of 
Probus  (fl.  56 — 88  a.d.)  ;  that  on  the  Aeneid  by  Tib.  Claudius 
Donatus  (end  of  4th  century),  which  is  simply  a  prose  paraphrase 
exhibiting  the  rhetorical  connexion  of  the  successive  clauses ;  and 
that  on  the  whole  of  Virgil  by  Servius  (late  in  4th  century),  which 
includes  references  to  the  lost  commentary  by  Aelius  Donatus, 
who  appears  to  have  been  deficient  in  knowledge  and  judgement 
and  far  too  fond  of  allegorising  interpretations,  and  in  these 
respects  inferior  to  the  learned  and  sober  Servius6.  The  earliest 
mss  of  Virgil  belong  to  the  4th  or  5th  centuries. 

The  first  critical  edition  of  Horace  was  that  of  Probus ;  the 
first  commentary  that  of  Q.  Terentius  Scaurus, 
of^ioraceUdy  followed  (late  in  the  2nd  century)  by  Helenius 
Aero,  who  also  expounded  Terence  and  Persius. 
The  only  early  commentaries  now  extant  are  the  scholia  collected 
by  Pomponius  Porphyrio  (3rd  cent.),  and  by  Pseudo- Aero,  and 
those  compiled  for  various  mss  by  Prof.  Cruquius  of  Bruges.  It 


1  Nettleship  in  Conington’s  Virgil,  i4  pp.  xxix — cix. 


2  Suet.  Gramm.  16. 


3  i  8,  5 — 6. 

5  Ep.  i  20,  17. 


4  vii  226  f. 

6  Nettleship,  l.c.;  cp.  Schanz,  §  248. 


X.]  EARLY  STUDY  OF  VIRGIL  AND  HORACE.  1 85 


is  only  through  Cruquius  (1565)  that  we  know  anything  of  the 
codex  antiquissimus  Blandinius,  borrowed  from  the  library  of  a 
Benedictine  monastery  near  Ghent,  and  burnt  with  the  monastery 
after  it  had  been  returned  to  the  library.  It  represented  a  recen¬ 
sion  earlier  than  the  date  of  Porphyrio,  as,  in  Sat.  i  6,  126,  instead 
of  fugio  rabiosi  te?npora  signi  (recognised  by  Porphyrio),  it  had 
the  true  text : — ; fugio  campum  lusumque  trigonem .  The  only  ms 
which  retains  the  latter  is  the  codex  Gothanus  (cent.  10).  In  this, 
and  seven  other  mss,  we  find  a  record  at  the  end  of  the  Epodes 
showing  that,  at  the  close  of  the  Roman  age,  there  was  a  recen¬ 
sion  of  Horace  produced,  with  the  assistance  of  Felix,  orator 
urbis  Romae ,  by  Vettius  Agorius  Basilius  Mavortius  (the  consul  of 
527)1.  The  earliest  extant  ms  belongs  to  the  eighth  or  ninth 
century. 

In  the  next  chapter  we  shall  turn  to  the  Grammarians  and 
Scholars  of  the  Augustan  age. 


Cp.  Schanz,  §§  263 — 5 ;  and  Teuffel,  §  240,  6  and  477,  3. 


I DALIAELVCOS  VB I M 
FLOM  BVSETDVLCl  AD 
IAMQJ  BATD1CTOPAA 


From  Codex  Sangallensis  1394  (Century  iv  or  v)  of  Virgil 

( Aen .  i  693  f). 


(E.  M.  Thompson’s  Palaeography,  p.  185.) 


Conspectus  of  Latin  Literature,  &c.,  i — 300  A.D 


Roman 

Emperors 

A.D. 

14  Tiberius 


37  Caligula 
41  Claudius 


54  Nero 


68  Galba 

69  Otho 

69  Vitellius 
69  Vespasian 
79  Titus 
81  Domitian 
96  Nerva 
98  Trajan 

100 - 


Poets 


Germanicus 
15  b.c. — 19  A.D. 
c.  14  Manilius 


30-40  Phaedrus 
L. Ann. Seneca  II 
4  b.c. — 65  A.D. 

54  Calpurnius 
Persius  34 — 62 
Lucan  39 — 65 


Valerius  Flaccus 
d.  c.  go 
Statius  d.  c.  95 
Silius  25 — 101 
Martial 
c.  40 — 104 


117  Hadrian 


138  Antoninus 
Pius 

161  M.  Aurelius 
(161-9  L.  Verus) 


180  Commodus 
193  Pertinax 
193  Julianus 
193  Septimius 
Severus 


poetae  neoterici 


200 - 

hi  Caracalla 

117  Macrinus 

118  Elagabalus 
>22  Alexander 

Severus 
>35  Maximin 
>38  Gordian  I,  II 
o  JPupienus 
!3°  \Balbinus 
238  Gordian  III 
244  Philippus 
249  Decius 
251  Gallus 
253  Aemilianus 
253  Valerian  & 
Gallienus 
268  Claudius  II 
270  Aurelian 

275  Tacitus 

276  Florianus 
276  Probus 

282  Carus 

283  Carinus  & 
Numerian 

284  Diocletian 
[286  Maximian) 


Juvenal 
c.  5  5  or  60- 


-140 


249  Commodia- 
nus 


Historians, 

Biographers 


9  Pompeius 
Trogus 


30  Velleius  Pat¬ 
erculus 

31  Valerius 
Maximus 

41  Q.  Curtius 


Orators, 

Rhetoricians 


L.  Ann.  Seneca  I 
54  b.c.  39  a.d. 


P.  Rutilius 
Lupus 


Scholars, 
Critics,  &c. 


Other  Writers 
of  Prose 


Tacitus 
c.  55— 120 


120  Suetonius 
c.  75—160 
137  Florus 

Justin 


284  Nemesianus 


68-88  Quintilian 
35—95 


100  Younger 
Pliny  61 — 105 


35-70  Palaemon 


54-7  Asconius 
3—88 

56 — 80  Probus 


76  Elder  Pliny 
23—79 


c.  14  Celsus 


43-4  Pomponius 
Mela 

L.  Ann.  Seneca  II 
4  B.C. — 65  A.D. 

Petronius  d.  66 

64-5  Columella 


143  Fronto 
c.  90 — 168 
158  Apuleius 


223  Marius 
Maximus 


250  Junius  Cor- 
dus 


Spartianus 
Capitolinus 
Vulcatius  Galli- 
canus 
TrebelliusPollio 


Aquila 

Romanus 

295  Arnobius 
297  Eumenius 
Lactantius 


L.  Caesellius 
Vindex 

Q.  Ter.  Scaurus 
Velius  Longus 
c.  150  C.  Sulp. 
Apollinaris 
d.  c.  160 
169  Gellius 
b.  c.  130 
Aemilius  Asper 
Flavius  Caper 
Statilius 
Maximus 
Terentianus 
Maurus 
Helenius  Aero 
Festus 


70-97  Frontinus 
d.  c.  103 


Porphyrio 


C.  Julius 
Romanus 


238  Censorinus 


Gaius  no — 180? 


Tertullian 
c.  150—230 


218  ?  Solinus 

Cyprian 
c.  200—255 


Mar.  Plotius 
Sacerdos 


CHAPTER  XI. 


LATIN  SCHOLARSHIP  FROM  THE  AUGUSTAN  AGE 

TO  300  A.D. 

The  Temple  of  the  Palatine  Apollo,  founded  in  memory  of 
the  victory  of  Actium,  was  dedicated  by  Augustus  in  28  a.d. 
Like  the  Temple  of  the  ‘Victorious  Athena’  at  Pergamon,  it  was 
surrounded  by  colonnades  giving  access  to  a  Library.  The 
Library  consisted  of  two  apartments,  one  for  Greek  and  the  other 
for  Latin  books,  with  a  spacious  hall  between ;  and  we  are 
informed  that  the  books  were  collected  by  Pompeius  Macer1, 
and  that  the  Head  Librarian  was  C.  Julius  Hyginus2. 

Hyginus  (c.  64  b.c. — 17  a.d.),  the  pupil  of  Alexander  Poly- 
histor  (p.  iso)  and  the  friend  of  Ovid,  was  one  of 

,  .  Hyginus 

the  foremost  scholars  of  the  Augustan  age.  In  his 
studies  he  followed  the  traditions  of  Varro  as  well  as  those  of 
Nigidius  Figulus.  Among  the  most  important  of  his  multifarious 
works  were  (1)  his  commentary  on  Virgil,  and  (2)  his  treatise  on 
the  Urbes  Italiae ,  repeatedly  cited  by  Servius3.  Hyginus  was 
succeeded  by  his  own  freedman  Modestus,  who  is  mentioned  in 
Quintilian  (i  6,  36)  and  Martial  (x  21,  1);  and  by  M.  Pomponius 
Marcellus,  who  began  life  as  a  boxer  and  ended  it  as  a  pedant. 
During  a  discussion  in  court  as  to  whether  a  word  used  by  the 
emperor  Tiberius  was  good  Latin  or  not,  he  had  the  courage  to 
say  to  the  emperor :  ‘  civitatem  dare  potes  hominibus,  verbo  non 

1  Suet.  Caesar  56.  2  Suet.  Gram.  20. 

3  Teuffel,  §  262  ;  Schanz,  §§  342 — 6 ;  he  is  not  the  author  of  the  extant 
works  on  Astronomy  and  Mythology  which  bear  his  name  (Schanz,  §§  347 — 
350).  For  most  of  the  scholars  mentioned  in  this  chapter  and  the  next,  cp. 
Grafenhan,  iv  57 — 94. 


1 88 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


v. 


[CHAP. 


potes’1.  Varro  was  the  model  set  up  by  Fenestella  (52  b.c. — 19  a.d.), 
the  author  of  more  than  22  books  of  Annals,  which 

Fenestella  ...  .. 

became  the  source  of  a  vast  variety  01  later  erudi¬ 
tion  connected  with  Roman  antiquities  and  literary  history.  He 
is  described  by  Lactantius  as  a  ‘  diligentissimus  scriptor’2.  In  the 
same  age  Verrius  Flaccus  (Jl.  10  b.c.)  produced  his 
Filccus S  great  work  De  Verborum  Significatu,  the  first  Latin 

lexicon  ever  written.  This  survives  in  the  incom¬ 
plete  and  fragmentary  abridgement  by  Pompeius  Festus  (2nd  cent. 
a.d.),  which  in  its  turn  was  further  abridged  by  Paulus,  who 
dedicated  his  epitome  to  Charles  the  Great.  We  learn  from 
Suetonius  that  Verrius  Flaccus  introduced  among  his  pupils  the 
principle  of  competition.  He  was  made  tutor  to  the  grand¬ 
children  of  Augustus  and  died  as  an  old  man  in  the  reign  of 
* 

Tiberius.  The  remains  of  his  work  may  still  be  traced  in 
Quintilian,  Gellius,  Nonius,  Macrobius  and  other  writers3.  It 
appears  to  have  been  of  the  nature  of  an  encyclopaedia,  including 
‘  not  only  lexicographical  matter,  but  much  information  on  points 
of  history,  antiquities,  and  grammar,  illustrated  by  numerous 
quotations  from  poets,  jurists,  historians,  old  legal  documents, 
and  writers  on  religious  or  political  antiquities’4.  Much  of  his 
treatise  De  Orthographia  can  be  recovered  from  the  works  on 
the  same  subject  by  Terentius  Scaurus  and  Velius  Longus,  who 
wrote  under  Trajan  and  Hadrian,  and  from  Quintilian  i  4  and  7  s. 
At  Praeneste,  a  statue  was  erected  in  his  honour  with  a  semi¬ 
circular  marble  recess  inscribed  with  his  Fasti 6,  partially  preserved 
in  the  Fasti  Praenestinf . 

A  name  of  note  in  the  history  of  Latin  Grammar  is  that  of 
Q.  Remmius  Palaemon  (y£  35-70  a.d.)  of  Vicentia. 
By  birth  a  slave,  and  by  trade  a  weaver,  he  learnt 
the  elements  of  literature,  while  accompanying  his  master’s  son 
on  his  way  to  school ;  and,  after  obtaining  his  freedom,  he  held 
the  foremost  place  among  teachers  of  Grammar  in  Rome.  He 


Palaemon 


1  Suet.  Gram.  22. 

2  Inst.  Div.  i  6,  14,  ap.  Teuffel,  §  243,  2.  Cp.  Schanz,  §  331. 

3  Nettleship,  i  201 — 247. 

4  ib.  p.  205.  5  ib.  ii  15 1 — 8. 

6  Suet.  De  Gram.  17.  Teuffel,  §  74,  3. 

7  Teuffel,  §  74,  3  and  §  261  ;  Schanz,  §§  340 — 1. 


XI.] 


VERRIUS  FLACCUS. 


189 


was  born  towards  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Augustus,  and  lived 
under  Tiberius  and  Claudius,  both  of  whom  declared  that  morally 
he  was  the  last  man  to  whom  the  education  of  youth  ought  to  be 
entrusted.  His  popularity  was  due  to  his  marvellous  memory,  his 
readiness  of  speech,  and  his  power  of  improvising  poetry.  His 
Ars  Grammatical  probably  published  between  67  and  77  a.d., 
was  the  first  exclusively  scholastic  treatise  on  Latin  Grammar. 
We  infer  from  Juvenal  (vi  452  f,  vii  215)  that  it  contained  rules 
for  correct  speaking,  examples  from  ancient  poets,  with  chapters 
on  barbarism  and  solecism.  The  scholia  on  Juvenal  (vi  452) 
inform  us  that  Palaemon  was  the  preceptor  of  Quintilian,  and 
it  is  highly  probable  that  (in  i  4  and  5  §§  1 — 54)  Quintilian  is 
paraphrasing  from  his  preceptor’s  treatise.  He  was  the  first  to 
distinguish  four  declensions ;  and  part  of  his  grammatical  teaching 
is  preserved  by  Charisius  (4th  century).  Palaemon  humorously 
regarded  his  own  advent  as  an  arbiter  of  poetry  as  predicted  by 
Virgil  in  the  phrase,  venit  ecce  Palaemon ;  and  he  vain-gloriously 
asserted  that  letters  had  been  born  at  his  birth,  and  would  die  at 
his  death1. 

The  elder  Seneca,  L.  Annaeus  Seneca  of  Corduba  ( c .  54  b.c. — 
39A.D.),  is  a  link  between  the  republican  and  the 
imperial  times.  In  the  first  half  of  his  life  he  was  eider^3  the 
an  admirer  of  the  style  of  Cicero  and  of  Pollio  and 
Messala,  while  in  his  old  age  he  recorded  his  earlier  recollections 
in  works  which  illustrate  the  history  of  oratory  under  Augustus 
and  Tiberius,  and  are  interesting  in  connexion  with  matters  of 
rhetorical  criticism2.  He  mentions  Apollodorus  of  Pergamon 
(who  included  Augustus  among  his  pupils),  and  he  supplies  some 
reminiscences  of  Ovid  as  a  declaimer3.  In  the  latter  part  of  his 
life  we  may  place  P.  Rutilius  Lupus,  the  author  of  an  abridgement 
of  a  work  on  the  figures  of  speech  by  the  younger  Gorgias  (44  b.c.) 
containing  well-chosen  examples  translated  from  speeches  of  Attic 
orators  which  are  no  longer  extant4. 

1  Suetonius,  Gram.  23  ;  Teufifel,  §  282  ;  Nettleship,  ii  149,  163 — 9  ;  Schanz, 
§  475  ;  also  K.  Marschall,  De  Q.  Remrnii  Palaemonis  libris  grammaticis,  1887; 
Bursian’s  Jahresb.  vol.  68  (1891  ii),  p.  132  f;  and  Jeep’s  Redetheile ,  p.  172  f. 

2  Cp.  Saintsbury,  i  230 — 9.  3  Controv.  ii  2,  8. 

4  Teufifel,  §  270  ;  Schanz,  §  480;  Halm,  Rhet.  Lat.  Min.,  3 — 21. 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


190 


Seneca  the 
younger 


The  younger  Seneca1  (< c. .  4  b.c. — 65  a.d.)  is  absorbed  in  the 
philosophy  of  the  Stoics,  but  does  not  share  their 
interest  in  Grammar.  He  criticises  Cicero  and 
Virgil  for  their  admiration  of  Ennius2,  and  notes 
the  obsoleteness3  of  the  language  of  Ennius  and  Accius,  and  even 
of  that  of  Virgil,  whom  he  nevertheless  cites  very  frequently, 
calling  him  a  ‘vir  disertissimus ’4  and  a  ‘maximus  vates’5.  He 
quotes  Horace  occasionally,  especially  the  Satires ,  and  Ovid  far 
oftener,  especially  the  Metamorphoses,  describing  their  author  as 
‘poetarum  ingeniosissimus,  ad  pueriles  ineptias  delapsus’6.  He 
casts  contempt  on  those  who  are  wholly  engaged  in  the  study  of 
‘useless  letters’,  and  satirises  the  craze  of  the  Greeks  for  inquiring 
as  to  the  number  of  the  oarsmen  of  Ulysses,  and  whether  the 
Iliad  was  written  before  the  Odyssey,  and  whether  the  same  poet 
was  the  author  of  both7.  In  the  88th  of  his  Letters,  he  sneers  at 
the  ‘  grammatici  ’  (§  3) ;  he  justly  ridicules  the  attempts  to  make 
out  Homer  to  have  been  a  Stoic,  an  Epicurean,  a  Peripatetic  or  a 
Platonist  (§  5) ;  he  does  not  even  care  to  inquire  whether  Homer 
or  Hesiod  was  the  earlier  poet  (§  6) ;  and  he  pities  the  ‘  super¬ 
fluous  ’  learning  contained  in  the  4000  volumes  of  Didymus,  with 
their  discussions  on  the  birthplace  of  Homer,  and  the  moral 
character  of  Sappho  and  Anacreon  (§  37).  In  his  108th  Letter  he 
complains  that  the  spirit  of  disputatiousness  has  turned  ‘philo¬ 
sophy’  into  ‘philology’  (§  23),  and  also  points  out  that  the 
‘grammarian’  examines  Virgil  and  Cicero  from  a  point  of  view 
different  from  that  of  the  ‘philologer’  or  the  ‘philosopher’ 
(§§  24 — 34 ;  supra  p.  9).  He  is  almost  afraid  of  taking  an  undue 
interest  in  such  matters  himself  (§  35),  though  elsewhere  he  is 
generous  enough  to  describe  the  ‘  grammarians  ’  as  the  custodes 
Latini  sermonis  (Ep.  95  §  65).  Lastly,  in  making  the  earliest 
mention  of  the  alleged  destruction  of  40,000  mss  at  Alexandria 
(p.  1 12  f),  he  leaves  it  to  Livy  to  praise  the  Alexandrian  Library 
as  ‘a  noble  monument  of  royal  taste  and  royal  foresight’,  himself 


1  Cp.  Saintsbury,  i  246  f ;  Teuffel,  §§  287 — 290  ;  Schanz,  j 

2  Gellius,  xii  2  (Seneca,  Frag.  1 10 — 3)  and  Dial,  v  37,  5. 

3  Ep.  58,  1 — 6.  4  Dial  viii  1,  4. 

5  ib.  x  9,  2.  6  Nat.  Q.  iii  27,  13. 

7  Dial,  x  13,  1 — 9;  cp.  Nat.  Q.  iv  13,  1. 


452— 472- 


XI.] 


SENECA.  PETRONIUS.  PERSIUS. 


191 


Petronius 


regarding  it  as  a  monument  of  learned  extravagance,  and  even 
withdrawing  the  epithet  ‘  learned  ’ ;  for  the  books  (he  maintains) 
had  been  bought  for  mere  show  and  not  for  real  learning  {Dial. 
ix  9,  5). 

Much  more  interest  in  literature  seems  to  be  shown  by  another 
victim  of  Nero,  a  far  less  moral  writer,  Petronius 
(d.  66  a.d.).  His  extant  work  is  in  form  a  satura 
Menippea,  in  which  prose  is  interspersed  with  verse  in  various 
metres  parodying  the  style  of  Seneca,  Lucan  and  Nero1.  Literary 
criticism  is  here  incidentally  represented  in  the  opening  protest 
against  the  bombastic  language  which  results  from  the  practice  of 
declamation  (§§  1,  2).  It  is  also  exemplified  in  a  later  passage 
warning  the  poet  against  allowing  any  particular  sentence  to  be 
too  obtrusive  for  its  context,  insisting  on  the  use  of  choice 
language  and  the  avoidance  of  vulgarity,  and  justifying  this  view 
by  appealing  to  Homer  and  Virgil,  as  well  as  the  Greek  Lyric 
poets,  and  Horace  with  (what  Petronius  happily  describes  as)  his 
curiosa  felicitas  (§  118)2.  Literary  criticism  also  finds  its  place  in 
the  Satires  of  Persius  (34-62  a.d.),  who  touches  on 
the  interest  felt  by  the  descendants  of  Romulus  for 
the  after-dinner  discussion  of  literary  topics  (i  31).  His  highly 
satirical  and  allusive  prologue  is  followed  by  a  satire  on  the 
professional  poet  and  on  the  mania  for  poetic  recitation,  with 
parodies  of  the  ‘  precious  ’  style  affected  by  the  poetasters  of  the 
day.  There  is  also  a  critical  element  in  the  opening  passages  of 
the  fifth  and  sixth  Satires,  his  general  attitude  being  a  protest 
against  a  fantastic  pursuit  of  Greek  themes,  and  a  preference  for  a 
manly  Roman  style3. 

One  of  the  most  competent  commentators  of  the  first  century 
was  Q.  Asconius  Pedianus  {c.  3-88  a.d.),  who  was 
certainly  acquainted  with  Livy,  and  was  probably, 
like  Livy,  born  at  Patavium.  He  was  the  author  of  a  lost  work  in 
vindication  of  Virgil4,  but  is  best  known  as  the  writer  of  a  learned 
historical  commentary  on  Cicero’s  speeches.  All  that  has  survived 
is  certain  portions  of  the  commentary  on  the  Speeches  in  Piso?ie?n , 


Persius 


Asconius 


1  Teaffel,  §  305,  4 ;  Schanz,  §§  393—6. 

2  Saintsbury,  i  242 — 5.  3  ib.  i  248 — 253. 

4  Contra  obtrectatores  Vergilii,  quoted  by  Donatus  in  his  Life  of  Virgil. 


192 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Pliny  the 
elder 


pro  Scauro ,  pro  Milone ,  pro  Cornelio ,  and  in  toga  Candida.  It 
abounds  in  historical  and  antiquarian  lore,  and  shows  familiarity 
with  even  the  unpublished  works  of  Cicero,  and  the  speeches  of 
his  partisans  and  his  opponents.  It  was  composed  about  55  a.d., 
and  is  only  preserved  in  transcripts  of  the  ms  found  by  Poggio  at 
St  Gallen  in  1416  \ 

Grammar  was  one  of  the  many  subjects  which  attracted  the 
attention  of  the  elder  Pliny  (23-79  a.d.),  who,  in 
the  Preface  to  his  Naturalis  Historia  (§  28),  men¬ 
tions  what  he  modestly  calls  certain  libelli  which  he 
had  written  on  this  subject.  His  nephew,  Pliny  the  younger 
(iii  5,  5),  names  in  the  list  of  his  uncle’s  works  eight  libri  on 
dubius  sermo  (or  Irregularities  in  Formation),  written  in  the  time 
of  Nero.  It  is  probably  this  work  that  is  the  source  of  a  large 
part  of  Quintilian  i  5,  54  to  i  6,  287  s.  It  is  also  probably  the 
same  work  that  is  meant  by  the  Ars  Grammatica  attributed  to 
Pliny  by  Priscian  and  by  Gregory  of  Tours.  Pliny,  as  we  have 
already  noticed  (p.  176),  is  an  analogist.  Little  else  is  known  of 
his  views,  but  there  is  reason  to  believe  that  the  work  by  Valerius 
Probus  de  nomine  is  founded  on  the  grammatical  writings  of  the 
elder  Pliny3.  The  books  of  his  encyclopaedic  Naturalis  Historia 
which  deal  with  Ancient  Art  are  (with  all  their  imperfections)  the 
foundation  of  our  knowledge  of  that  subject.  The  work  has  sur¬ 
vived  in  many  mss,  having  been  very  popular  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
Extracts  from  the  geographical  portions  appear  in  Solinus,  and 
other  excerpts  in  the  Medicina  Plinii. 

M.  Valerius  Probus  of  Beyrut  (fl.  56-88  a.d.)  was  the  foremost 
grammarian  of  the  first  century  a.d.  Weary  of  the 
career  of  a  soldier,  he  resolved  on  becoming  a 
scholar.  His  interest  in  literature  was  first  excited  by  certain 
ancient  Latin  authors  which  he  had  read  before  arriving  in  Rome, 
and  here  he  continued  his  studies  and  gathered  round  him  a  num- 


Probus 


1  Madvig  (1828)  ;  Teuffel,  §  295,  2 — 3;  Wissowa  in  Pauly- Wissowa  s.v.\ 
ed.  in  Orelli’s  Cicero  v  2  pp.  1 — 95,  and  by  Kiessling  and  Scholl  (1875).  Cp. 
Suringar,  Hist.  Critica ,  i  117 — 146;  also  Schanz,  §  476,  esp.  p.  43 11 2  ad  fin. 

2  Nettleship,  ii  158 — 161. 

3  O.  Froehde,  Valerii  Probi  de  nomine  libellum  Plinii  Secundi  doctrinam 
continere  demonstratur,  1892;  cp.  Nettleship,  ii  146,  150;  Schanz,  §  494,  5. 


XI.] 


ASCONIUS.  PLINY.  PROBUS. 


193 


ber  of  learned  friends,  with  whom  he  spent  several  hours  a  day  in 
discussing  the  Latin  literature  of  the  past1.  Martial,  in  sending 
into  the  world  his  third  book  of  epigrams,  bids  it  farewell  with 
the  words:  nec  Probum  timeto  (iii  2,  12).  Gellius,  among  several 
eulogistic  references,  describes  him  as  an  ‘  illustrious  grammarian 5 
(i  15,  18),  and  Sidonius  Apollinaris  calls  him  ‘a  pillar  of  learning’ 
( Carm.  ix  334).  He  published  a  few  unimportant  criticisms,  besides 
leaving  behind  him  a  silva  observationum  sermonis  antiqui.  Speci¬ 
mens  of  his  conversational  teaching  on  this  subject  are  preserved 
by  Gellius,  who  cites  at  second-hand  his  remarks  on  Plautus, 
Terence,  Virgil,  Sallust  and  Valerius  Antias,  mentions  some  of  his 
writings,  e.g.  on  the  Perfect  form  occecurri ,  and  also  states  that  he 
made  the  penultimate  of  the  Accusative  of  Hannibal  and  Hasdru- 
bal  long,  on  the  ground  that  it  was  so  pronounced  by  Plautus  and 
Ennius  (whose  pronunciation  of  these  forms  has  not  been  followed 
by  Horace  or  Juvenal).  He  produced  recensions  of  Plautus  (?), 
Terence,  Lucretius,  Virgil,  Horace  and  Persius,  with  critical 
symbols  like  those  used  by  the  Alexandrian  Scholars.  These 
symbols,  which  were  21  in  number,  had  already  been  used  by 
Vargunteius  and  by  Aelius  Stilo2.  He  also  wrote  a  work  on 
the  ancient  contractions  used  in  legal  Latin.  In  settling  the 
text  of  Virgil,  he  went  back  to  the  earliest  authorities.  We  are 
told  that  he  had  himself  examined  a  ms  of  the  First  Georgic 
corrected  by  Virgil’s  own  hand3 *,  and  traces  of  some  of  his 

critical  signs  survive  in  the  Medicean  ms  of  Virgil,  while  we 

may  ascribe  to  him  the  nucleus  at  least  of  the  extant  commentary 
on  the  Bucolics  and  Georgies,  which  bears  his  name.  Among  the 

grammatical  works  assigned  to  Probus  is  one  on  anomaly  (de 

inaequalitate  consuetudinis ),  another  on  tenses,  and  on  doubtful 
genders.  Two  treatises  have  come  down  to  us  under  his  name : 
(1)  Catholica ,  dealing  with  the  noun  and  the  verb;  (2)  a  prolix 
and  feeble  treatise  on  Grammar  (to  which  the  title  Instituta 
Artium  has  been  given)  with  an  appendix  de  differ entiis  and  de 
nomine  excerpta.  It  is  supposed  that  these  are  ultimately  founded 

1  Suet.  De  Gram.  24. 

2  Reifferscheid,  Suetoni  Reliquiae ,  p.  137  f.  Teuffel,  §  41,  2.  Grafenhan, 
iv  372,  380. 

3  Gellius,  xiii  21,  4. 

S. 


13 


194 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


on  the  remains  of  the  teaching  of  Probus  which  may  have  been 
reduced  into  the  form  of  a  textbook  in  two  parts : — (i)  the  Insti- 
tuta  Artium,  dealing  with  letters,  syllables  and  the  eight  parts  of 
speech;  and  (2)  the  Catholica ,  dealing  with  nouns  and  verbs1. 
Pliny  and  Probus  are  probably  responsible  for  most  of  the  remarks 
on  irregularities  of  declension  and  conjugation  found  in  the  later 
grammarians.  To  these  two  writers,  and  to  Palaemon,  may  be 
ascribed  the  main  outlines  of  the  traditional  Latin  Grammar2. 

From  Probus  we  turn  to  a  name  of  far  greater  note.  Fabius 
Quintilianus  ( c .  35-95  a.d.),  born  at  Calagurris  on 
the  Ebro,  was  the  pupil  of  Palaemon  and  the 
preceptor  of  Tacitus  and  the  younger  Pliny.  His  father  was 
a  teacher  of  rhetoric  in  Rome,  where  he  himself  passed  the 
greater  part  of  his  life  as  a  pleader  in  the  law-courts  and-  as  a 
professor  of  rhetoric.  In  88  b.c.  he  was  placed  at  the  head 
of  the  first  State-supported  school  in  Rome,  and  probably  three 
years  afterwards  he  began  his  great  work,  the  Institutio  Oratoria. 
The  study  of  literature  {de  grammatica )  is  the  theme  of  chapters 
4 — 8  of  his  first  book,  while  c.  9  is  de  officio  grammatici.  There 
is  reason  to  believe  that  c.  4  and  c.  5  §§  1 — 54  are  founded  on 
Palaemon;  c.  5  §  54  to  c.  6  §  27  on  Pliny,  and  c.  7  §§  1 — 28  on 
Verrius  Flaccus3.  In  the  controversy  between  analogists  and 
anomalists,  Quintilian,  as  we  have  seen,  was  on  the  side  of  the 
former  without  adhering  to  them  very  strictly  (p.  177).  In  the 
first  chapter  of  the  tenth  book  he  suggests  a  course  of  reading 
suitable  for  the  future  orator,  including  (1)  the  Greek  and  (2)  the 
Latin  classics  arranged  under  the  heads  of  poetry,  the  drama, 
history,  oratory  and  philosophy.  In  (1)  he  virtually  admits  that 
he  is  giving  the  criticism  of  others,  not  his  own.  These  criticisms 
have  so  much  in  common  with  those  of  Dionysius  of  Halicar¬ 
nassus  that  it  is  practically  impossible  to  dispute  Quintilian’s 
indebtedness  to  that  author,  though  an  attempt  has  been  made 
to  show  that  the  identity  is  due  to  both  having  borrowed  from  the 
same  earlier  authority4.  In  part  of  his  criticisms  on  the  Greek 

1  Teuffel,  §  300;  Schanz,  §§  477—9. 

2  Nettleship,  ii  170  f;  Schanz,  §§  494—5.  3  Nettleship,  ii  169. 

4  Usener,  Dion.  Hal.  de  Imitatione ,  p.  132.  Heydenreich,  De  Quintiliani 

...libro  X  (1900),  maintains  that  Quintilian  was  directly  indebted  to  Dionysius. 


XI.]  QUINTILIAN.  TACITUS.  YOUNGER  PLINY. 


195 


Tacitus 


poets,  historians  and  philosophers,  he  appears  to  be  indebted  to 
Theophrastus  and  the  Alexandrian  critics,  such  as  Aristophanes 
and  Aristarchus1.  In  (2)  his  aim  throughout  is  to  make  canons 
of  classical  Latin  authors  corresponding  as  closely  as  possible  with 
the  canons  of  Greek  authors.  He  gives  no  independent  opinion 
on  Pacuvius  and  Accius,  and  hardly  notices  Plautus,  Caecilius, 
and  Terence;  he  misconceives  Lucretius;  and  although  his 
criticisms  on  post-Ciceronian  writers  are  sound  and  well-expressed, 
they  are  generally  brief.  It  is  clear  that  literature  before  and 
after  Cicero  has  comparatively  little  attraction  for  Quintilian. 
His  refined  and  carefully  written  criticism  on  Cicero  is  a  monu¬ 
ment  of  trained  insight,  grounded  on  manly  and  sober  sense. 
While  Quintilian  is  concerned  with  the  literary  and  professional 
aspects  of  the  question  as  to  the  reading  which  is  best  suited  for 
the  formation  of  a  good  oratorical  style,  Tacitus 
(< c .  55-120  a.d.)  in  his  Dialogue  De  Oratoribus 
(81  a.d.)  takes  a  loftier  view,  seeing  clearly  that  literature  must 
be  ‘judged  as  the  expression  of  national  life,  not  as  a  matter  of 
form  and  of  scholastic  teaching’2.  The  doubts  as  to  the  Tacitean 
authorship  of  the  Dialogue  have  been  partly  met  by  the  fact  that 
a  phrase  there  found  (9  and  12)3  is  mentioned  as  expressing  the 
opinion  of  Tacitus  in  a  letter  addressed  by  Pliny  the  younger 
(61-105  a.d.)  to  Tacitus  himself  (ix  10,  2)4.  The 
criticism  of  oratory  has  also  an  attraction  for  the  p^ny  younger 
younger  Pliny.  He  writes  a  long  letter  to  Tacitus, 
in  the  course  of  which  he  refers  to  the  typical  orators  in 
Homer,  and  quotes  the  ancient  eulogies  on  the  style  of  Pericles 
(i  20).  He  also  refers  to  the  De  Corona  and  the  Meidias  of 
Demosthenes  (ii  3  10;  vii  30,  4),  and  quotes  several  passages 
from  his  public  speeches  as  examples  of  happy  audacity  of  phrase 
(ix  26,  8 — 12)5. 


1  Nettleship,  ii  76 — 83  ;  and  Peterson’s  Quintil.  X,  pp.  xxviii — xxxvii. 

2  Nettleship  l.c.  p.  87  ff.  Teuffel,  §  325  (Quintilian);  §  334  (Tacitus);  cp. 
Schanz,  §  483  f  and  §  428.  For  a  facsimile  from  a  MS  of  Quintilian  (x  1,  87), 
see  p.  203. 

3  in  nemora  et  lucos ;  nemora  et  luci. 

4  poemata...quae  tu  inter  nemora  et  lucos  commodissime  perfici  putas. 

5  Teuffel,  §  340  ;  Schanz,  §  444  b  Literary  criticism  in  Pliny,  Tacitus  and 
Quintilian  is  fully  treated  by  Saintsbury,  i  270 — 321. 


13—2 


196 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Juvenal 


Pliny  was  born  in  about  the  same  year  as  Juvenal,  and  died  in 
about  the  same  year  as  his  earlier  contemporary 

Martial  .  J  J 

Martial.  Of  these  two  poets,  Martial  {c.  40 — 
c.  102-4  a.d.)  shows  a  high  appreciation  of  Catullus  (x  78  etc.) 
who  was  beyond  the  reach  of  the  flattery  which  he  lavishes  on 
his  own  contemporary  Silius  Italicus  (iv  14;  vii  63).  In  criticising 
another  contemporary,  whose  verses  were  so  obscure  as  to  call  for 
a  scholiast,  he  expresses  a  hope  that  his  own  poems  may  give 
pleasure  to  grammarians,  but  may  be  intelligible  without  their 
aid1.  In  many  other  epigrams,  as  has  been  fully  shown  by 
Mr  Saintsbury2,  ‘we  have  a  very  considerable  number  of  pro¬ 
nouncements  on  critical  points  or  on  points  connected  with 
criticism  ’.  In  Juvenal  ( c .  55-60 — 140  a.d.)  there  is 
much  mention  of  literature,  but  literary  criticism 
is  hardly  to  be  found.  He  satirises  the  learned  ladies  who  prefer 
talking  Greek  to  Latin  (vi  185 — 7),  and  weigh  the  merits  of 
Homer  and  Virgil  (435 — 6).  In  the  seventh  Satire  he  describes 
the  ideal  poet,  and  pays  a  passing  compliment  to  Quintilian  (53  f, 
186  f);  in  the  tenth  (114 — 132)  he  ‘points  a  moral’ as  to  the 
perils  of  a  political  career  by  referring  to  the  fate  of  Demosthenes 
and  Cicero,  but  he  does  not  permit  any  of  these  themes  to  tempt 
him  into  the  criticism  of  literature3.  Juvenal  is  the 
only  contemporary  of  Statius  ( c .  40 — c.  96  a.d.)  who 
mentions  that  poet4,  and  there  are  some  fine  touches  of  criticism 
in  the  poem  by  Statius  on  the  birthday  of  Lucan,  where  Ennius 
and  Lucretius  (amongst  others)  are  briefly  characterised  : — 

‘  Cedet  Musa  rudis  ferocis  Enni, 

Et  docti  furor  arduus  Lucreti’5. 


Statius 


From  this  group  of  poets  we  turn  to  the  name  of  a  writer 
of  prose,  who  is  our  main  authority  on  the  history  of  Latin 
Scholarship  from  168  b.c.  to  the  time  of  Probus,  and  whose 
varied  erudition  made  him  a  favourite  author  in  the  early  Middle 
Ages.  C.  Suetonius  Tranquillus  (c.  75-160  a.d.), 
who  was  an  advocate  under  Trajan,  and  private 
secretary  to  Hadrian,  spent  the  latter  part  of  his  life  in  preparing 


1  x  21,  grammaticis  placeant,  sed  sine  grammaticis. 

2  i  256 — 268.  3  ib.  253 — 6.  4  Juv.  vii  82 — 7. 

5  Silvae,  ii  7,  7 5  f ;  cp.  Saintsbury,  i  268  f. 


XI.]  MARTIAL.  JUVENAL.  STATIUS.  SUETONIUS.  197 


encyclopaedic  works  on  the  history  of  language  and  literature. 
Apart  from  his  extant  work  de  vita  Caesarum ,  he  wrote  a  series  of 
biographies  entitled  de  viris  illustribus  under  the  headings  of 
‘poets’,  ‘orators’,  ‘historians’,  ‘philosophers’,  ‘scholars’  (gratn- 
matici),  and  ‘rhetoricians’.  Of  the  early  part  of  this  work  we 
possess  excerpts  alone.  From  the  book  on  ‘poets’,  we  have  short 
lives  of  Terence,  Horace,  Lucan,  Virgil  and  Persius,  and  some 
remnants  of  the  life  of  Lucretius  from  that  on  ‘historians’,  a  few 
remains  of  a  life  of  the  elder  Pliny.  Of  his  36  biographies  of 
‘scholars  and  rhetoricians’,  no  less  than  25  have  survived.  He 
also  wrote  a  work  on  Roman  institutions  and  customs.  It  was 
probably  in  another  lost  work  entitled  Pratum  or  Prata  that 
(among  many  other  topics)  he  treated  of  various  notations  of 
time  in  connexion  with  the  Roman  year,  being  one  of  the 
authorities  followed  on  this  point  by  Censorinus  and  Macrobius1 2, 
besides  being  one  of  the  main  sources  of  the  erudition  of  Isidore 
of  Seville.  The  works  of  Suetonius  included  a  defence  of  Cicero 
against  the  attacks  of  the  Alexandrian  Scholar,  Didymus,  and  a 
treatise  on  the  critical  signs  used  in  the  margins  of  mss3.  Most 
of  our  knowledge  of  the  meanings  of  these  symbols  is  due  to 
Suetonius4. 

Among  the  Scholars  of  the  second  century  a.d.  were  Caesellius 
Vindex,  a  learned  analogist5;  Q.  Terentius  Scaurus, 
who  wrote  on  orthography  as  well  as  Grammar  and  vei?us 'Emeus 
Poetry,  and  was  also  a  commentator  on  Plautus  and 
Virgil,  and  probably  on  Horace6;  Velius  Longus  and  Flavius 
Caper7,  both  of  whom  wrote  on  orthography ;  and 
Aemilius  Asper,  the  learned  and  acute  commen¬ 
tator  on  Terence,  Sallust  and  Virgil8.  A  special  interest  attaches 

1  J.  Masson  in  Jotirnal  of  Philology,  xxxiii  220 — 237. 

2  Reifferscheid,  Suetoni  Reliquiae ,  p.  149  f. 

3  7r epi  rrjs  KiKepwvos  7 roXirelas,  and  Trepl  t&v  iv  rots  /3ift\Loi.s  <jy)p.eluv 
(Suidas). 

4  Reifferscheid,  p.  135  f. — On  Suetonius  in  general,  cp.  Teuffel,  §  347, 
Schanz,  §§  529 — 536;  and  Mace,  Sur  Suelone,  1900. 

5  Teuffel,  §  343;  Schanz,  §  593. 

6  ib-  §  3 5 2  5  Schanz,  §  594  f. 

7  ib.  §  343;  Schanz,  §§  596,  599. 

8  ib.  §  328  ;  Schanz  §  598. 


198 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


Tchap. 

u 


Fronto 


Arruntius 

Celsus 


to  M.  Cornelius  Fronto  of  Cirta  (c.  90-168  a.d.),  the  tutor  of 
M.  Aurelius  and  the  admirer  of  the  earlier  Roman 
literature  as  represented  by  Plautus,  Ennius,  Cato, 
Gracchus,  Lucretius,  Laberius  and  Sallust.  He  never  mentions 
Terence  or  Virgil,  though  he  betrays  occasional  reminiscences  not 
of  Virgil  only  but  also  of  Horace  and  Tacitus.  He  depreciates 
Seneca,  but  bestows  frequent  encomiums  on  Cicero,  though  he 
cares  more  for  his  letters  than  for  his  speeches,  in  which  he  finds 
very  few  of  those  rare  words  for  which  Fronto  himself  had  an 
excessive  partiality1.  In  literary  criticism  £his  utterances  do  not 
go  beyond  neatly  formulated  criticisms  of  the  old 
Apomnaris1US  scholastic  type’2.  Mention  may  here  be  made  of 
C.  Sulpicius  Apollinaris  of  Carthage,  the  teacher  of 
Pertinax  and  of  Gellius,  and  the  author  of  the  quaestiones  episto- 
licae ,  and  of  metrical  summaries  of  Plautus,  Terence 
and  the  Aeneid* ;  and  Arruntius  Celsus,  an  anno¬ 
tator  on  Plautus  and  Terence4. 

More  important  than  either  of  these  is  Aulus  Gellius5  (born 
c.  130  a.d.),  the  author  of  the  Nodes  Atticae ,  an 

Gellius  .  .  1  .  .  ...  _  .  , 

interesting  and  instructive  compilation  01  varied 
lore  on  the  earlier  Latin  Language  and  Literature,  and  on  Law 
and  Philosophy,  deriving  its  name  from  the  fact  that  the  author 
began  it,  about  the  age  of  thirty,  in  the  winter  evenings  near 
Athens.  Its  main  importance  is  due  to  its  large  number  of 
citations  from  works  which  are  now  no  longer  extant.  At  Athens 
the  author  became  acquainted  with  the  mysterious  philosopher, 
Peregrinus  Proteus  (xii  11,  1),  and  was  often  invited  to  the 
country-house  of  that  distinguished  patron  of  learning,  Herodes 
Atticus  (i  2,  1 ;  xix  12);  he  attended  the  monthly  meetings  of 
the  students  (xv  2,  3),  and  made  excursions  to  Aegina  and  Delphi 
(ii  21,  xii  5).  In  his  extant  work  he  shows  himself  a  most 
industrious  student  and  a  typical  Scholar.  He  frequents  Libraries, 
whether  in  the  domus  Tiberiana  on  the  Palatine,  or  in  the  Temple 


1  Teuffel,  §  355,  5;  Schanz,  §§  549  f,  esp.  §  552. 

2  Nettleship,  ii  91.  3  Teuffel,  §  357,  1 — 2;  Schanz,  §  597. 

4  d.  357,  3;  Schanz,  §  605,  5. 

5  ib.  365  ;  Schanz,  §  607 — 9;  Nettleship,  i  248 — 276  ;  cp.  Boissier,  Fin  du 

Paganisme,  ed.  3,  1898,  i  178 — 180;  and  Saintsbury,  i  322 — 9. 


XI.] 


FRONTO.  AULUS  GELLIUS. 


199 


of  Peace  founded  by  Vespasian,  in  the  Temple  of  Trajan,  or  in 
that  of  Hercules  at  Tibur,  or  even  at  Patrae  in  Greece,  where  he 
finds  a  ‘really  ancient  ms’  of  Livius  Andronicus1.  The  reading 
aloud  of  a  passage  on  melted  ice  or  snow  from  a  ms  of  Aristotle, 
borrowed  by  a  friend  from  the  Temple  at  Tibur2,  leads  him  to 
forswear  cold  drinks  for  the  rest  of  his  life.  He  has  pleasant 
memories  of  his  teacher  Antonius  Julianus,  who  paid  a  large  sum 
for  the  purpose  of  verifying  a  single  reading  in  an  ancient  ms  of 
Ennius  (xviii  5,  ii)3;  he  refers  to  good  mss  of  Fabius  Pictor,  Cato, 
Catullus,  Sallust,  Cicero  and  Virgil,  but  in  these  references  it  is 
possible  that  he  may  be  really  borrowing  from  Probus  who, 
according  to  Suetonius,  ‘gave  an  immense  amount  of  attention 
to  the  collection  of  good  mss  of  classical  authors’4.  In  matters 
of  style,  he  has  some  general  remarks  accompanying  a  short 
comparison  between  Plato  and  Lysias  (ii  5),  also  between 
Menander  and  Caecilius  (ii  23),  and  C.  Gracchus  and  Cicero 
(x  3).  He  tells  the  story  of  the  meeting  at  Tarentum  between 
the  aged  Pacuvius  and  the  youthful  Accius,  when  Pacuvius,  after 
hearing  Accius  read  his  Atreus ,  pronounced  it  grand  and  sonorous, 
but  perhaps  harsh  and  crude,  and  Accius  replied  that  he  hoped 
his  poems  would  improve  in  time,  like  apples  that  were  harsh  and 
crude  at  first,  but  afterwards  became  sweet  and  mellow  (xiii  2). 
He  quotes  a  comparison  between  the  eruption  of  Aetna  as 
described  by  Pindar  and  by  Virgil  (xvii  10).  He  also  defends 
Sallust  and  Virgil  against  their  detractors,  and  discusses  the 
style  of  Seneca  (xii  2).  More  than  a  fourth  of  his  work  is 
concerned  with  Latin  lexicography,  e.g.  the  singular  use  of  mille 
(i  16),  with  notes  on  pedarii  senatores  (iii  18),  on  the  different 
senses  of  obnoxius  (vi  17),  on  proletarii  and  adsidui  (xvi  10),  on 
the  exact  meaning  of  the  phrase  in  Ennius,  ex  iure  manum 
consertum  (xx  10),  and  on  Cicero’s  use  of  paenitere  (xvii  1).  He 
also  discusses  synonyms,  words  of  double  meaning,  derivations, 
and  moot  points  of  Grammar,  such  as  the  pronunciation  of  h  and 

1  xiii  20,  1 ;  xvi  8,  2  :  xi  17,  1 ;  ix  14,  3  ;  xviii  9,  5. 

2  xix  5,  4  5  cp-  ix  i4»  3* 

3  It  was  Julianus  who,  in  the  summer  holidays,  took  Gellius  and  his  other 
pupils  to  hear  a  recitation  from  the  Annals  of  Ennius  in  the  theatre  of  Puteoli 
(xviii  5,  1—5). 

4  Suet.  Gram.  24  (Nettleship,  i  274). 


200 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


v  (ii  3  ;  x  4),  the  quantity  of  in  and  con  in  composition  (ii  17), 
the  question  whether  one  should  say  tertium  or  tertio ,  cur  am  vestri 
or  vestrum  (x  1;  xx  6),  and  the  difference  between  multis  homini- 
bus  and  multis  mortalibus  (xiii  28).  He  quotes  a  large  variety  of 
Greek  and  Latin  authors,  taking  a  special  interest  in  the  earlier 
Latin  Literature  and  in  Latin  ‘grammarians’.  But  he  rejects  a 
friend’s  suggestion  that  he  should  discuss  (among  many  other 
minor  matters)  the  question  what  was  the  name  of  the  first 
‘grammarian’  (xiv  6,  3).  Among  the  more  miscellaneous  con¬ 
tents  of  his  work,  readers  of  Sandford  and  Merton  may  be 
interested  to  find  the  original  text  of  the  story  of  ‘  Androclus  and 
the  Lion,’  here  quoted  from  the  Alexandrian  ‘grammarian’  Apion 
(v  14,  10 — 30).  In  a  history  of  Classical  Scholarship  it  may  be 
worth  noticing  that,  while  Cicero1  describes  Cleanthes  and  Chry- 
sippus  as  qumtae  classic  in  comparison  with  Democritus,  Gellius 
contrasts  a  ‘scriptor  classicus'>  with  a  ‘scriptor  proletarius  ’ 2, 
obviously  deriving  his  metaphor  from  the  division  of  the  Roman 
people  into  classes  by  Servius  Tullius,  those  in  the  first  class  being 
called  classici 3,  all  the  rest  infra  classem ,  and  those  in  the  last 
proletarii.  As  infra  classem  and  classici  testes  are  explained  by 
Paulus4  in  his  abridgement  of  Festus  (the  epitomiser  of  Verrius 
Flaccus),  it  is  probable  that  Verrius  is  also  the  authority  followed 
by  Gellius.  In  any  case  it  is  from  this  rare  use  of  classicus  that 
the  modern  term  ‘  classical  ’  is  derived. 

To  the  close  of  the  2nd  century  may  be  assigned  Terentianus 
^  .  Maurus,  the  writer  of  a  manual  in  verse  on  ‘  letters, 

Aero.  Festus.  syllables  and  metres’,  the  metrical  portion  of  which 
Porphyno  jg  founcied  on  a  work  by  Caesius  Bassus,  the  friend 
of  Persius5;  also  Aero,  the  commentator  on  Terence  and  Horace ; 
and  Festus,  the  author  of  the  abridgement  of  Verrius  Flaccus  just 
mentioned.  Porphyrio,  whose  scholia  on  Horace  are  still  extant, 
probably  belongs  to  a  later  date  than  Aero,  whom  he  quotes  on 
Sat.  i  8,  25,  and  whose  name  is  wrongly  given  to  a  number  of 

1  Acad,  ii  73. 

2  xix  8,  15,  classicus  adsiduusque  scriptor,  non  proletarius. 

3  vi  (vii)  13,  1  where  Cato  is  quoted. 

4  pp.  1 13  and  56  (Nettleship,  i  269). 

5  Teuffel,  §  373a;  Schanz,  §  514. 


XI.]  AULUS  GELLIUS.  ACRO  AND  PORPHYRIO. 


201 


miscellaneous  scholia  on  Horace  founded  partly  on  Aero  and 
Porphyrio  with  some  additions  from  the  Roma  of  Suetonius1. 
Statilius  Maximus  is  known  to  have  revised  a  ms  of  the  Second 
Agrarian  speech  of  Cicero  with  the  aid  of  the  text  edited  by 
Cicero’s  freedman,  Tiro2,  whose  libri  Tironiani  are  mentioned  by 
Gellius  (i  7,  i ;  xiii  21,  16)  in  connexion  with  the  Verrine  orations. 
Statilius,  who  is  also  known  to  have  commented  on  peculiarities 
in  the  diction  of  Cato,  Sallust  and  Cicero,  falls  between  the  time 
of  Gellius,  who  never  quotes  him,  and  that  of  Julius  Romanus, 
who  quotes  him  repeatedly. 

The  Scholars  of  the  3rd  century  include  the  learned  gram¬ 
marian,  C.  Julius  Romanus,  extensively  quoted  by  Charisius3;  and 
the  writer  of  several  grammatical  works,  Censorinus4, 

.  Censorinus 

whose  extant  but  incomplete  treatise  De  die  natali 
(238  a.d.),  mainly  compiled  from  a  lost  work  of  Suetonius,  contains 
much  valuable  information  on  points  of  history  and  chronology. 
In  the  second  half  of  this  century  we  may  place  Aquila  Romanus, 
the  author  of  a  work  on  figures  of  speech,  adapted  from  Alexander 
Numenius5;  and  Marius  Plotius  Sacerdos,  the  author  of  an  Ars 
Grammatica  in  three  books,  the  second  of  which  is  mainly  iden¬ 
tical  with  the  Catholica  ascribed  to  Probus  ( supra ,  p.  193)6. 

A  characteristic  product  of  this  age  is  the  epitome  of  Pliny 
bearing  the  name  of  Solinus,  which  afterwards  became  popular  in 
a  new  form  and  under  the  pretentious  title  of  Polyhistor.  Just 
before  the  last  quarter  of  this  century  the  emperor  Tacitus  (275-6) 
provided  for  the  preservation  of  the  works  of  his  ‘  ancestor  ’  the 
historian  by  causing  a  copy  to  be  placed  in  each  of  the  public 
libraries  and  by  arranging  for  the  transcription  of  further  copies  in 
the  future7. 

As  we  glance  over  the  three  centuries  from  the  age  of  Augustus 
to  that  of  Diocletian,  which  have  been  rapidly  traversed  in  this 

1  Teuffel,  §  374;  Schanz,  §  601 — 2. 

2  Statilius  Maximus  rursus  emendavi  ad  Tyronem  etc.  (A.  Mai,  Cic.  cod. 
Ambros.,  p.  231,  ap.  Jahn,  Sachs.  Bei-ichte,  1851,  329). 

3  ib'  §  379»  1 ;  Schanz,  §  603. 

4  id.  6 — 8;  Schanz,  §  632. 

5  d.  §  388  ;  Halm,  Rhet.  Lat.  Min.  22  f. 

6  Teuffel,  §  394;  Schanz,  §  604  f;  Jeep,  Redetheile ,  pp.  73 — 82. 

7  Vopiscus,  Tac.  10. 


202 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


chapter,  we  are  bound  to  recognise  that,  in  the  first  century  a.d., 
grammatical  studies  are  more  systematic,  but  at  the  same  time 
more  narrow,  than  in  the  last  century  of  the  republic.  The 
preparation  of  practical  manuals  for  educational  purposes  has 
superseded  the  scientific  and  learned  labours  of  a  Varro,  and 
has  ultimately  led  to  the  actual  loss  of  the  greater  part  of  his 
encyclopaedic  works ;  but  we  may  well  be  thankful  to  the 
grammarians  of  the  first  century  for  all  the  lore  that  they  have 
preserved1,  and  we  cannot  forget  that  in  that  century  learned 
comment  on  Cicero,  who  is  already  a  Classic,  is  represented  by 
the  sober  sense  of  an  Asconius,  and  literary  criticism  by  the 
sound  judgement  and  good  taste  of  Cicero’s  admirer,  Quintilian. 

The  second  century,  in  which  Suetonius  with  all  his  varied 
learning  must  be  regarded  as  little  more  than  a  minor  counterpart 
of  Varro,  was  in  matters  of  Scholarship  an  age  of  epitomes  and 
compilations.  Learning  became  fashionable,  but  erudition  often 
lapsed  into  triviality,  and  the  ancient  classics  were  ransacked  for 
phrases  which  ill  assorted  with  the  style  of  the  time.  In  the 
domain  of  Scholarship  the  most  interesting  personalities  in  this 
century  are  those  of  Cornelius  Fronto  and  Aulus  Gellius.  It  is 
characteristic  of  this  age  that,  when  Gellius  calls  to  inquire  after 
Fronto,  who  has  been  kept  at  home  by  the  gout,  the  question  as 
to  the  ‘approximate’  cost  of  the  construction  of  a  new  bath  for  the 
relief  of  the  learned  patient  leads  to  a  scholarly  discussion,  in  the 
course  of  which  it  is  shown  that  the  supposed  vulgarism  praeter- 
propter  (‘thereabout’,  ‘more  or  less’)  was  actually  used  by  Varro 
and  Cato  and  was  really  as  old  as  Ennius2. 

In  the  third  century  the  only  scholar  worthy  of  consideration 
has  been  Censorinus,  yet  even  he  owes  his  learning  mainly  to 
Suetonius,  the  inheritor  of  the  traditions  of  Varro.  But  while 
Varro,  who  did  not  condescend  to  sacrifice  to  the  Graces,  has 
been  punished  for  his  lack  of  style  and  for  his  prolixity  by  the 
loss  of  by  far  the  larger  part  of  all  his  learned  works,  and  while 
Suetonius,  with  his  wide  range  of  scholarly  research,  scarcely 
survives  except  in  his  biographies,  the  diminutive  work  of 
Censorinus,  a  mere  birthday  gift  with  its  borrowed  erudition, 


1  Nettleship,  ii  171. 


2  Gellius,  xix  10. 


XI.] 


CENSORINUS. 


203 


and  its  citations  from  authors,  many  of  which  the  writer  never 
saw,  has  succeeded  in  descending  to  posterity,  thanks  in  part 
to  its  brevity  and  perhaps  to  its  saving  grace  of  style.  The  great 
argosies  have  foundered,  but  the  tiny  skiff  has  suffered  little 
damage  in  drifting  down  the  stream  of  time. 


tc  yov&mapl  cccen  cmf  Icngzr  fZciuctv 
mrjttx  mxcerxt  IwcrmW U&meruli 
qwdc.yn  ur  ywrfHn.  ide*  ccnyuTdo 
qucrmer  fosuittc.legxnccr  tnfux  diet' 

afeer  hxntxnsf  dker  cuf 


mhtTgqae-M 

rri  c  ad  /JctrtuT  imptxT  o-pcrirAhenif' 

tv  {yerncndxtT  quidd.vxrnf  cuiqrnJS 
facahzccc  dicendi  yarn  Iccuylcx&n  • 

From  Codex  Laurentianus  xlvi  7  (Century  x)  of  Quintilian  (x  i,  87). 
(Chatelain’s  PaUographie  des  Classiques  Latins ,  pi.  clxxvii.) 


( dequalita)te  pensamus.  ceteri  omnes  longe  sequentur.  nain  Macer  et  Lucre¬ 
tius  legendi  quidem,  sed  non  ut  phrasin,  id  est  corpus  eloquentiae  faciant ; 
elegantes  in  sua  quisque  materia  sed  alter  humilis  alter  difficilis.  Atacinus 
Varro  in  his ,  per  quae  nomen  est  adsecutus ,  interpres  operis  alieni,  non  sper- 
nendus  quidem ,  verum  ad  augendam  faadtatem  dicendi  parum  locuples. 


Conspectus  of  Latin  Literature  &c.,  300 — 600  A.D 


Roman 

Emperors 


305  Constantius  I 

306  Constantine  I 


337  . 

-40  Constan- 
J  tine  II 
-61  \  Constan¬ 
tius  II 

-50  v  Constans  I 


361  Julian 
363  Jovian 
364-75  Valenti- 
nian  I 

367-83  Gratian 
375  Valenti- 
nian  II 

392  Theodosius  I 
395  Honorius 

400 - 


423  John 
425  Valenti- 
nian  III 


5  Petronius 
Maximus 
5  Avitus 
7  Majorian 

1  Libius 
Severus 

7  Anthemius 

2  Olybrius 

3  Glycerius 


)  UUU3  X^ 

—6  Romulus 
Augustulus 


Gothic  Kings 
476  Odoacer 
493  Theodoric 

500 


526  Athalaric 
534  Theodahad 
536—9  Vitiges 
541 — 52  Totila 


527  Justinian  I 


565  Justin  II 


578  Tiberius  II 
582  Mauricius 


600 


Poets 

Historians  & 
Biographers 

Orators  and 
Rhetoricians 

Vopiscus 

Lampridius 

330  Juvencus 

350  Avienus 

360  Aurelius 
Victor 

363  Eutropius 

362  Claudius 
Mamertinus 

379  Ausonius 
c.  310— c.  393 

395—404 

Claud  ian 

390  Ammianus 
c.  330—400 

389  Pacatus 

391  Symmachus 
345—405 

404  Prudentius 
348—^.  410 
409  Paulinus 

353—431 

416  Namatianus 
Cl.  Marius  Vic¬ 
tor,  d.  425-450 
435  Merobaudes 
c.  440  Sedulius 

Vegetius 

Sulp.  Severus 

c.  3657-425 

417  Orosius 
b.  c.  390 

439 — 451  Salvian 

Chirius  Fortu- 
natianus 

C.  Julius  Victor 

455  Prosper 
c.  400 — 463 

470  Apollinaris 
Sidonius 
c.  430 — 480 
484 — 96  Dra- 
contius 

490  Avitus 

460— c.  525 

Gennadius 

Cyprianus 
<?•  475—550 

51 1  Eugippius, 
vita  Severini 

507  Ennodius 
473—521 

514  Cassiodorus 
c.  480— c.  575 

Maximianus 

Arator 

550  Corippus 

551  Iordanis 
Gildas  516—573 

Fortunatus 
c.  535—6oo 

573  Gregory  of 
Tours538— 593 

Isidore  of  Seville 
c.  570—636 

Scholars  and 
Critics 


323  Nonius 


353  Marius 
Victorinus 
353  Aelius 
Donatus 

Charisius 

Diomedes 


Servius 
Ti.  Claudius 
Donatus 
Macrobius 


401  Torq.  Gen- 
nadius  revises 
text  of  Martial 


Nicomachus 
Flavianus  and 
his  son 
Nicomachus 
Dexter 

revise  text  of 
Livy 


Consentius 

Phocas 


494  Asterius  re¬ 
vises  text  of 
Virgil 


Fulgentius 
c.  480—550 
512  Priscian 

527  Vettius 
Agorius 
Mavortius 
revises  text  of 
Horace 


Other  Writers 
of  Prose 


350  Hilary  of 
Poitiers  d.  367 


373  Ambrose 

r.  340—397 
386  Jerome 
331—420 
395  Augustine 
334—43° 


4x5  Cassianus 
c.  360  435 
Martianus 
Capella 
429  Hilary  of 
Arles  d.  c.  450 
434  Vincentius 
Lerinus 
440  Leo  I 
395—461 


470  Claudianus 
Mamertus 


510  Boethius 
c.  480—524 


529  Benedict 
480—543 
529  Monte  Cas- 
sino founded 


590  Gregory  I 
c.  540 — 604 


CHAPTER  XII. 


LATIN  SCHOLARSHIP  FROM  3OO  TO  500  A.D. 


Early  in  the  third  century  (212  a.d.)  Caracalla  had  extended 
the  title  and  the  obligations  of  Roman  citizenship 
to  all  the  free  inhabitants  of  the  empire ;  and  century 
throughout  that  century  (though  in  no  connexion 
with  this  important  constitutional  change)  the  most  memorable 
contributions  to  Latin  literature  had  come,  not  from  Rome,  but 
from  the  provinces ;  not  from  pagans,  but  from  Christians.  The 
first  half  of  the  century  had  included  the  closing  years  of  Tertul- 
lian  ( c .  150-230)  and  nearly  the  whole  of  the  life  of  Cyprian 
(c.  200-258),  both  of  them  closely  connected  with  Carthage; 
while,  towards  the  end  of  the  century,  Numidia  had  been 
represented  in  Latin  literature  by  Arnobius,  and  Bithynia  by 
Lactantius,  who  had  been  summoned  from  Africa  by  Diocletian 
to  teach  Latin  rhetoric  in  his  new  capital  of  Nicomedia.  Under 
the  rule  of  Diocletian  (285-305)  Rome  ceased  to 
be  the  residence  of  the  emperor  and  its  importance  century0111^ 
was  for  a  time  still  further  diminished  by  the  transfer 
of  the  imperial  capital  to  Constantinople  (330).  But  it  continued 
to  be  a  centre  of  world-wide  interest  during  the  struggle  between 
the  adherents  of  a  gradually  receding  paganism  and  a  slowly  but 
surely  advancing  Christianity.  In  362,  by  a  decree  of  Julian  the 
Apostate,  which  is  denounced  even  by  a  pagan  historian  as 
deserving  perpetual  oblivion  \  Christians  were  forbidden  to  teach 
grammar  and  rhetoric,  on  the  ground  of  their  disbelief  in  the 
gods  of  Homer,  Thucydides  and  Demosthenes.  The  decree 
resulted  in  the  resignation  of  an  eminent  teacher,  Victorinus, 
and  in  the  short-lived  production  of  purely  Christian  text-books. 


1  Amm.  IV^arc.  xxii  10,  7,  obruendum  perenni  silentio. 


20  6 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Twenty  years  later,  in  the  conflict  that  raged  round  the  question 
as  to  the  emperor  Gratian’s  removal  of  the  Altar  of  Victory  from 
its  immemorial  position  in  the  Senate  House,  the  old  order  was 
represented  by  Symmachus  and  Praetextatus,  and  the  new  by 
St  Ambrose  and  Pope  Damasus,  and,  shortly  afterwards,  by 
Prudentius.  Towards  the  end  of  the  fourth  century  (390)  the 
ruin  of  the  ancient  religion  of  Rome  was  completed  by  the  decree 
of  Theodosius,  by  which  death  was  the  penalty  for  offering  sacri¬ 
fice.  About  the  same  year,  a  Greek  of  Antioch,  Ammianus 
Marcellinus,  was  completing  in  Rome  itself,  and  in  a  strange 
variety  of  Latin,  blended  with  many  reminiscences  of  the  ‘  sayings 
of  Cicero  ’,  his  continuation  of  Tacitus,  the  extant  portion  of  which 
is  invaluable  as  an  authority  for  the  years  353  to  378,  besides 
including  interesting  glimpses  of  contemporary  life  in  Rome,  as 
where  he  writes  of  certain  leisurely  Romans  who  ‘  hated  learning 
like  poison”,  and  whose  ‘libraries  were  closed  for  ever  like  the 
tomb’1  2.  A  little  later  (395-405)  in  the  first  decade  of  the  division 
of  the  empire  of  Theodosius  between  his  two  sons,  Arcadius  in 
the  East  and  Honorius  in  the  West,  Claudian  of  Alexandria,  the 
last  representative  of  paganism3  among  the  greater  Latin  poets, 
was  living  in  Italy,  at  Rome  and  Milan.  The  latest  date  to  which 
any  of  his  poems  can  be  assigned  is  404  or  405.  The  former  of 
these  years  saw  the  publication  of  the  first  collected  edition  of  the 
poems  of  one  who  had  been  born  in  Spain  and  had  only  recently 
arrived  in  Rome,  the  great  Christian  poet,  Prudentius ;  and  the 
latter  was  the  date  of  the  completion  at  Bethlehem  of  St  Jerome’s 
Latin  version  of  the  Bible,  which  he  had  begun  in  Rome  more 
than  twenty  years  before. 

Meanwhile  the  study  of  Grammar  in  the  fourth  century  begins 
in  northern  Africa  with  the  name  of  the  Numidian  tiro,  Nonius 
Marcellus,  and  culminates  at  Rome  about  the  middle  of  the 
century  with  the  far  greater  name  of  Donatus,  the  commentator 
on  Terence  and  the  preceptor  of  St  Jerome.  It  was  continued  at 
an  uncertain  date  by  less  original  grammarians,  such  as  Charisius 
and  Diomedes,  who  have  the  modest  merit  of  preserving  for 

1  xxviii  4,  14,  detestantes  ut  venena  doctrinas. 

2  xiv  6,  18,  bybliothecis  sepulcrorum  ritu  in  perpetuum  clausis. 

3  Claudian  was  possibly  a  nominal  Christian  (Pauly-Wissowa,  iii  2656). 


XII.] 


THE  FOURTH  AND  FIFTH  CENTURIES. 


207 


posterity  the  grammatical  teaching  of  an  earlier  age.  The  general 
state  of  learning  in  this  century  is  best  illustrated  by  the  names  of 
Ausonius  (himself  a  teacher  of  grammar  and  rhetoric)  and  his 
distinguished  friend,  Q.  Aurelius  Symmachus ;  also  by  those 
unwearied  expositors  of  Virgil,  Servius  and  Macrobius;  and, 
lastly,  by  St  Jerome  and  St  Augustine,  whose  lives  extended  to 
the  twentieth  and  thirtieth  years  respectively  of  the  following 
century. 

In  the  fifth  century  the  controversy  as  to  the  religious  causes 
that  led  to  the  capture  of  Rome  by  the  Goths 
under  Alaric  in  410  inspired  the  greatest  of  the  century 
works  of  St  Augustine,  the  De  Civitate  Dei ;  and 
St  Augustine  in  his  turn  prompted  a  young  Spanish  priest,  Orosius, 
who  reached  Hippo  about  414,  to  supplement  that  work  by 
writing  a  history  of  the  world,  which  barely  mentions  Pericles 
and  refers  to  Demosthenes  only  as  the  recipient  of  Persian  bribes, 
and  is  founded  mainly  on  the  Bible,  Livy,  Tacitus,  Suetonius, 
Justin,  Eutropius,  and  possibly  St  Jerome’s  rendering  of  the 
Chronicle  of  Eusebius.  Before  the  end  of  the  fourth  century, 
owing  to  an  impulse  first  given  by  St  Athanasius  at  Trier  in  336, 
monasteries  had  been  established  in  Gaul  in  360  and  372  by 
St  Martin  of  Tours  (d.  400) ;  in  405  the  monastery  of  Lerins  (off 
Cannes)  was  founded  by  St  Honoratus ;  and,  about  415,  monastic 
discipline  was  introduced  into  Gaul  from  the  East  by  Cassian, 
the  founder  of  the  monastery  of  St  Victor  at  Marseilles.  In  his 
Monastic  Institutes  he  recognises  manual  labour  as  a  remedy  for 
ennui ,  quoting  with  approval  the  saying  sanctioned  by  the  ‘ancient 
fathers  ’  in  Egypt,  that  ‘  a  monk  who  works  is  troubled  by  one 
devil  only,  but  a  monk  who  is  idle  by  many’1;  but  he  mentions 
the  copying  of  mss  only  once,  and  that  in  the  case  of  an  Italian 
monk,  who  confessed  he  could  do  nothing  else2.  In  a  sequel3  to 
this  treatise  he  reports  his  conversations  with  the  hermits  of  the 
Thebaid,  dwelling  on  the  ideal  of  the  monastic  life  and  thus 
supplying  that  incentive  towards  intellectual  studies  which  led 


1  De  institutis  coenobioru/n  et  de  octo  principalium  vitiorum  remediis , 
Lib.  X  (on  acedia  or  taedium  sive  anxietas  cordis )  23,  operantem  monachum 
daemone  uno  pulsari,  otiosum  vero  innumeris  spiritibus  devastari. 

2  ib.  v  39  (Ebert,  i2  351). 

3  Collationes  Patrjtm  (Ebert,  352 — 4). 


208 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


to  the  monasteries  of  the  West  becoming  the  homes  of  learning 
and  literature  and  even  of  classical  scholarship  in  the  Middle 
Ages.  The  Vandals  had  not  yet  invaded  Africa  in  429,  when  a 
work  whose  influence  lasted  throughout  the  Middle  Ages  had 
been  there  composed  by  Martianus  Capella.  Between  the  capture 
of  Carthage  by  the  Vandals  in  439  and  the  inroad  of  Attila  and 
his  Huns  into  Gaul  in  451,  Salvian,  the  presbyter  of  Marseilles, 
who  attained  a  hale  old  age  in  480,  was  prompted  by  the 
calamities  of  his  country  to  compose  the  memorable  treatise 
De  Guber?iatio?ie  Dei  with  its  gloomy  presage  of  the  approaching 
end  of  the  constitution,  the  civilisation  and  the  learning  of  Rome. 
The  quarter  of  a  century  that  elapsed  between  the  defeat  of 
Attila  by  Aetius  on  the  Catalaunian  plains  in  451,  and  the 
extinction  of  the  Western  Empire  by  Odoacer,  the  son  of  one 
of  Attila’s  officers,  in  476,  corresponds  in  Latin  literature  to  the 
active  life  of  the  Gallic  poet  and  letter-writer,  the  accomplished 
bishop  of  Auvergne,  Apollinaris  Sidonius,  who  saw  his  diocese 
annexed  by  the  Visigoths  in  475,  and  died  less  than  nine  years 
later. 

In  the  history  of  Scholarship  the  fourth  century  opens  with 
the  name  of  Nonius  Marcellus  of  Thubursicum  in 

Nonius  .  . 

Numidia  (jl.  323  a.d.),  the  author  of  an  encyclo¬ 
paedic  work  compiled  for  the  benefit  of  his  son,  and  entitled  De 
Compendiosa  Doctrina.  It  is  divided  into  three  parts,  lexico¬ 
graphical,  grammatical  and  antiquarian.  In  the  grammatical 
portion  the  compiler  is  largely  indebted  to  Probus,  Caper  and 
Pliny ;  and,  in  the  lexicographical,  to  the  scholars  and  antiquarians 
from  the  reigns  of  Nero  and  Vespasian  to  those  of  Trajan  and 
Hadrian,  and  especially  to  Verrius  Flaccus1.  Nonius  frequently 
copies  Gellius,  but  never  mentions  his  name.  The  value  of  his 
work  lies  mainly  in  its  numerous  quotations  from  early  Latin 
literature2.  All  who  have  studied  it  speak  of  the  compiler  with 
the  utmost  contempt.  He  is  actually  so  ignorant,  or  so  careless, 
as  to  imply  that  M.  Tullius  was  not  the  same  person  as  Cicero 3. 

1  Nettleship,  i  228 — 232,  277 — 321 ;  Teuffel,  §  404“. 

2  See  esp.  W.  M.  Lindsay,  Nonius  Marcellus ,  1901. 

3  P.  Schmidt  (186S)  p.  92,  ap.  Teuffel,  §  404s,  4. 


XII.] 


NONIUS.  AUSONIUS. 


209 


During  this  century  Latin  .Scholarship  flourished  far  less 
vigorously  in  Africa  than  in  Gaul,  where  it  is  well 

1  #  #  Ausomus 

represented  by  Ausonius  and  his  circle,  who  had 
a  direct  and  intimate  knowledge  of  the  Latin  Classics.  The  life 
of  Ausonius  (c.  310-c.  393) 1  extends  from  near  the  beginning  to 
near  the  end  of  the  century;  so  that  in  Latin  literature  the 
fourth  century  may  be  described  as  the  century  of  Ausonius. 
Born  at  Bordeaux,  he  there  went  through  the  early  stages  of 
a  ‘grammatical’  education  which  included  Greek,  though  he 
admits  that  in  that  language  he  had  been  a  dull  pupil2.  His 
education  was  continued  under  his  uncle  at  Toulouse  ( c .  320-328); 
about  334  he  became  professor,  first  of  ‘grammar’,  and  afterwards 
of  rhetoric,  in  his  native  town ;  and,  thirty  years  later,  he  was 
summoned  to  Trier  to  teach  ‘grammar’  and  rhetoric  to  the 
youthful  Gratian.  After  his  pupil  had  ascended  the  throne  (late 
in  375),  Ausonius  was  appointed  to  several  high  offices,  becoming 
praefectus  Galliarum  in  378  and  consul  in  the  following  year.  On 
the  death  of  Gratian  (383)  he  returned  to  Bordeaux,  where  he 
was  actively  engaged  in  a  variety  of  literary  work.  It  is  to  this 
period  that  nearly  all  his  extant  writings  belong.  Most  of  his 
poems  are  marked  less  by  poetic  power  than  by  skill  in  versifica¬ 
tion.  He  is  well  described  by  M.  Boissier3  as  ‘an  incorrigible 
versifier’,  and  his  verses  are  usually  of  a  trivial  type.  But  they 
present  us  with  a  graphic  and  varied  picture  of  the  personalities 
and  the  general  circumstances  of  his  time,  with  eulogistic  accounts 
of  his  own  relations,  and  his  former  instructors  or  colleagues  at 
Bordeaux,  whether  professors  of  Rhetoric,  wholly  concerned  with 
Prose,  or  ‘grammarians’,  i.e.  professors  of  Literature,  mainly 
concerned  with  Verse.  One  of  these,  ‘a  second  Quintilian’,  is 
famous  for  his  marvellous  memory,  and  rivals  Demosthenes  in 
delivery  ( Commem.  1 ) ;  a  second,  we  are  assured,  will  (apparently 

1  Teuffel,  §  421  ;  chronology  in  Peiper’s  ed.  pp.  90 — 114. 

2  Commem.  Prof.  Burdigalensium ,  viii  13 — 16  : — 

‘  Obstitit  nostrae  quia,  credo,  mentis 
Tardior  sensus  neque  disciplinis 
Adpulit  Graecis  puerilis  aevi 
Noxius  error’. 

3  La  Fin  du  Paganisme  (1891),  i  205  =  1753. 

s.  14 


210 


[CHAP. 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 

by  his  literary  works)  add  to  the  fame  of  the  emperor  Julian,  and 
to  that  of  Sallustius,  his  colleague  as  consul  in  363  a.d.  (2);  a 
third  is  compared  to  Aristarchus  and  Zenodotus  (13);  a  fourth 
knows  Scaurus  and  Probus  by  heart  (15);  a  fifth  is  familiar  not 
only  with  these  grammarians,  but  also  with  Livy  and  Herodotus, 
and  the  whole  of  Varro  (20).  In  the  verses  addressed  by  Ausonius 
to  his  young  grandson,  who  is  just  going  to  school,  his  motto  is 
disce  libens ;  by  a  quotation  from  Virgil,  degeneres  animos  timor 
arguit,  he  encourages  his  grandson  not  to  be  afraid  of  his  master ; 
he  exhorts  him  to  read,  in  the  first  place,  Homer  and  Menander, 
also  Horace  and  Virgil,  Terence  and  Sallust  {Idyl,  iv  46 — 63). 
Writing  to  his  younger  contemporary,  the  celebrated  Symmachus, 
he  flatteringly  describes  him  as  combining  the  merits  of  Isocrates, 
Cicero  and  Virgil  {Ep.  ii) ;  he  similarly  assures  Tetradius  that  his 
satires  will  rival  those  of  Lucilius  {Ep.  xi) ;  he  invites  the  rhe¬ 
torician  Axius  Paulus  to  come  with  haste  ‘  by  oar  or  wheel  ’, 
bringing  with  him  his  own  poems  of  every  kind,  to  some  quiet 
country-place  on  the  estuary  of  the  Garonne,  to  which  Ausonius 
proposes  to  escape  after  he  has  visited  the  crowded  streets  of 
Bordeaux  on  Easter  Sunday.  On  New  Year’s  day  he  sends  the 
same  friend  a  macaronic  epistle  in  a  strange  mixture  of  Greek  and 
Latin  {Ep.  viii) ;  and,  in  a  third  letter  beginning  in  Latin  and 
ending  in  Greek,  tells  him  this  time  to  leave  all  his  own  poems  at 
home,  as  he  will  find  at  his  host’s  every  variety  of  verse,  not  to 
mention  Herodotus  and  Thucydides  and  other  works  in  prose 
{Ep.  ix).  This  last  letter  closes  with  the  happy  ending: — ‘vale  ; 
valere  si  voles  me,  iam  veni’.  But  the  only  poem  of  Ausonius 
that  rises  to  a  distinctly  high  level  is  his  Mosella  with  its  fascinating 
description  of  the  crystal  waters  and  the  vineclad  banks  of  the 
river  between  Berncastel  and  Trier,  where  the  poem  was  written 
about  the  end  of  370  a.d.  The  poet’s  correspondent,  Symmachus, 
while  he  makes  merry  over  the  minute  description  of  the  fishes 
of  the  stream  (a  description  which  has  proved  sufficiently  precise 
to  enable  a  Cuvier  to  identify  the  fifteen  species  enumerated  by 
the  poet),  goes  so  far  as  to  rank  the  poem  with  those  of  Virgil  \ 
As  a  specimen  we  may  here  quote  (and  render)  four  lines  alone, 
marking  in  italics  the  phrase  especially  admired  by  Edward  Fitz- 

1  Ep.  i  14,  ego  hoc  tuum  carmen  libris  Maronis  adiungo. 


XII.] 


AUSONIUS. 


2 1 1 


Gerald1,  who  owed  to  Professor  Cowell  his  first  knowledge,  not  of 
Omar  KMyyam  only,  but  also  of  Ausonius  : — 

‘  Quis  color  ille  vadis,  seras  cum  propulit  umbras 
Hesperus,  et  viridi  perfundit  monte  Mosellam  ! 

Tota  natant  crispis  iuga  motibus,  et  tremit  absens 
Pampinus ,  et  vitreis  vindemia  turget  in  undis’.  (192 — 5.) 

What  a  glow  was  on  the  shallows,  when  the  shades  of  Evening  fell, 

And  the  verdure  of  the  mountain  bathed  the  breast  of  fair  Moselle  ! 

In  the  glassy  stream  reflected,  float  the  hills  in  wavy  line, 

Swells  the  vintage,  sways  the  trembling  tendril  of  the  absent  vine. 

Apart  from  its  purely  original  passages,  which  are  inspired  with  a 
love  of  Nature  striking  a  new  note  in  Latin  literature,  the  poem 
abounds  in  happy  reminiscences  not  of  Virgil  only  but  also  of 
Horace,  Lucan  and  Statius2;  and  (as  we  know  from  the  Ce?ito )  it 
is  far  from  being  the  only  proof  of  its  author’s  intimate  knowledge 
of  the  text  of  Virgil.  As  a  teacher  of  ‘  grammar  ’,  he  had  neces¬ 
sarily  been  long  familiar  with  Latin  literature.  Among  his  great 
precursors  as  ‘  grammarians  ’  he  mentions  men  like  Aemilius 
Asper,  Terentius  Scaurus,  and  Probus3.  He  even  compares  a 
now  unknown  ‘grammarian’  of  Trier  with  Varro  and  Crates  and 
the  grammarians  of  Alexandria4,  among  whom  he  elsewhere  names 
Zenodotus  and  Aristarchus  and  the  symbols  which  they  used  in 
the  criticism  of  Homer5.  He  states  that  his  father,  who  was 
eminent  as  a  physician,  knew  Greek  better  than  Latin  (Id.  ii  9). 
His  own  epigrams  include  several  in  Greek,  and  also  (as  already 
noticed)  in  Greek  and  Latin  combined,  with  Latin  renderings 
from  the  Greek  Anthology.  As  a  specimen  of  these  last  the 
following  epigram  on  the  Greek  games  may  be  quoted : 

*  Quattuor  antiquos  celebravit  Achaiia  ludos ; 

Caelicolum  duo  sunt  et  duo  festa  hominum. 

Sacra  Iovis  Phoebique,  Palaemonis  Archemorique 
Serta  quibus  pinus,  malus,  oliva,  apium’6. 

He  is  the  one  Latin  poet  who  has  exactly  imitated  the  ‘greater 

1  Letters  (1846),  i  205  (ed.  1894).  The  original  is  obviously  imitated  in 
Pope’s  Windsor  Forest,  21 1 — 6. 

2  See  ref.  in  Peiper’s  ed.  pp.  457 — 466. 

3  Praef.  i  20.  4  Ep.  xiii  27 — 30. 

5  Ludus  Sept.  Sap.  i  12.  6  Anth.  Gr.  ix  357. 

14 — 2 


212 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Sapphic’  metre,  which  is  only  approximately  copied  by  Horace1. 
Many  of  his  verses,  especially  those  comprised  in  his  Techno- 
paegnion ,  are  mere  efforts  of  technical  skill.  Among  these  we 
have  a  long  series  of  lines  ending  with  a  monosyllable,  including 
a  useful  couplet  distinguishing  vas  and  praes : — 

‘  Quis  subit  in  poenam  capitali  iudicio  ?  vas. 

Quid  si  lis  fuerit  nummaria,  quis  dabitur?  praes  ’. 

Of  his  lines  on  the  letters  of  the  alphabet  the  following  are  perhaps 
the  most  interesting  : — 

‘  Cecropiis  ignota  notis,  ferale  sonans  V. 

Pythagorae  bivium  ramis  pateo  ambiguis  Y\ 

It  is  difficult  to  imagine  that  a  man  capable  of  writing  such 
trifles  as  these  (not  to  mention  his  lines  on  the  Caesars  and  on 
celebrated  cities)  had  some  ten  years  previously  (in  378  a.d.) 
filled  the  splendid  position  of  praetorian  praefect  of  the  provinces 
of  Gaul  (an  official  whose  sway  extended  even  over  Spain  and  the 
opposite  coast  of  Africa,  and  over  the  southern  part  of  Britain), 
and,  in  the  four  years  between  376  and  380,  had  seen  his  father 
honorary  praefect  of  Illyricum,  his  son  and  son-in-law  proconsuls  of 
Africa,  and  his  nephew  praefect  of  Rome2.  It  seems  as  if,  on  his 
return  to  the  scenes  of  his  early  work  as  a  professor  at  Bordeaux, 
the  praefect  relapsed  into  the  ‘  grammarian  ’,  spending  his  time  on 
learned  trifles,  which  are  among  the  least  important  products  of 
scholarship,  and  consoling  himself  in  his  tedious  task  by  recalling 
Virgil’s  famous  phrase: — ‘in  tenui  labor,  at  tenuis  non  gloria’3. 
We  may  regret  that  Ausonius  does  not  appear  to  have  used  his 
great  opportunities  for  reforming  the  educational  system  which 
prevailed  in  the  schools  of  the  Western  Empire,  and  thus  rendering 
a  lasting  service  to  the  cause  of  learning4;  but  we  may  allow  him 
the  credit  of  having  possibly  inspired  the  memorable  decree 
promulgated  by  Gratian  in  376,  which  improved  the  status  of 
public  instructors  by  providing  for  the  appointment  of  teachers  of 

1  Sappho,  frag.  60;  Horace,  Carm.  i  8;  and  Auson.  Id.  vii,  p.  116  Peiper* 
Bissula,  nomen  tenerae  rusticulum  puellae. 

2  Seeck’s  Introd.  to  Symmachus  (in  Mon .  Germ.  Hist .),  p.  lxxix  f. 

3  Georg,  iv  6,  loosely  quoted  in  Praef.  to  Technopaegnion. 

4  Mullinger’s  Schools  of  Charles  the  Great ,  pp.  13 — 16. 


XII.] 


AUSONIUS.  PAULINUS. 


213 


rhetoric  and  of  Greek  and  Latin  ‘  grammar  ’  in  the  principal  cities 
of  Gaul,  and  fixing  the  amount  of  their  stipends1. 

Whatever  doubts  may  be  felt  as  to  the  religion  of  Ausonius, 
who  was  apparently  a  heathen  at  heart,  though  a  Christian  by 
profession,  there  are  none  as  to  that  of  either  of  his  younger 
contemporaries  and  correspondents,  Paulinus2  and  Symmachus3. 
Paulinus  (353-431),  a  man  of  noble  birth,  a  favourite  pupil  of 
Ausonius,  gave  early  proof  of  his  metrical  skill  in  a 

’  .  J  r  .  .  Paulinus 

poetic  version  of  a  work  of  Suetonius,  De  Regions, 
and  a  fragment  of  that  version  is  still  extant4.  He  was  consul 
and  governor  of  a  province  before  the  age  of  thirty.  His  conver¬ 
sion  to  Christianity  ( c .  390)  prompts  his  former  instructor  to  pray 
the  ‘  Muses  of  Boeotia  ’  to  restore  his  friend  to  the  poetry  of 
Rome5 ;  but  Paulinus  firmly  replies  that  hearts  consecrated 
to  Christ  are  closed  to  Apollo  and  the  Muses6.  He  became 
bishop  of  Nola  in  409,  but  even  his  Christian  poems  retain  the 
traces  of  his  early  training  in  their  reminiscences  of  Horace  and 
Virgil.  He  is  especially  fond  of  the  Sapphic  stanza  and  the 
metres  of  the  Epodes,  and  the  second  Epode  in  particular  is 
obviously  imitated  in  his  paraphrase  of  the  first  Psalm  : — 

‘  Beatus  ille  qui  procul  vitam  suam 
Ab  impiorum  segregarit  coetibus  ’. 

His  attitude  towards  pagan  literature  is  clearly  shown  in  a  letter 
to  his  friend  Jovius,  whom  he  rebukes  for  attributing  the  unex- 

1  Cod.  Theodos.  xiii  3,  11,  ...frequentissimis  in  civitatibus...praeceptorum 
optimi  quique  erudiendae  praesideant  iuventuti,  rhetores  loquimur  et  gramma- 
ticos  Atticae  Romanaeque  doctrinae  (printed  in  full  in  Peiper’s  Ausonius,  p.  c). 
On  Ausonius  cp.  also  Schenkl’s  ed.  (in  Mon.  Germ.  Hist.);  also  Boissier’s 
Fin  du  Paganisme,  i  175 3  f,  ii  66—  78s;  Dill’s  Roman  Society  in  the  Last 
Century  of  the  Western  Empire,  pp.  159,  402,  with  pp.  167 — 188,  ‘The 
Society  of  Ausonius’;  and  T.  R.  Glover’s  Life  and  Letters  in  the  Fourth 
Century ,  pp.  102 — 124.  The  best  of  the  earlier  accounts  is  in  the  Histoire 
Litteraire  de  la  France,  i  2  (1733),  pp.  281 — 318. 

2  Peiper’s  Ausonius,  pp.  266 — 309  ;  Ebert,  Lit.  d.  Mittelalters,  i2  293 — 311 ; 
Teuffel,  §  437,  and  Boissier,  ii  49 — 1033;  also  Dill,  p.  396  f. 

3  ed.  Seeck  in  Mon.  Germ.  Hist.;  Teuffel,  §  4-2 5 ;  Boissier,  ii  267s f;  Dill, 
pp.  143 — 1 66;  T.  R.  Glover,  pp.  148 — 170. 

4  Ausonius,  Ep.  xix  (p.  267  Peiper). 

5  Ep.  xxv  (p.  289)  Latiis  vatem  revocate  Camenis. 

6  Carm.  x  22,  negant  Camenis,  nec  patent  Apollini  |  dicata  Christo  pectora. 


214 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


pected  recovery  of  a  large  sum  of  money  to  the  favour  of  Fortune 
instead  of  the  over-ruling  of  Divine  Providence.  He  regretfully 
observes  that  his  friend  had  found  time  for  the  study  of  Xeno- 

i 

phon,  Plato  and  Demosthenes,  and  for  the  pursuit  of  philosophy, 
but  had  no  leisure  for  being  a  Christian.  He  compares  the 
charms  of  literature  to  the  fruit  of  the  lotus  and  the  songs  of  the 
Sirens,  which  made  men  forget  their  true  home.  He  would  not, 
however,  have  his  friend  lay  aside  his  philosophy,  but  season  it 
with  faith  and  religion.  Like  St  Augustine  and  St  Jerome,  he 
would  have  him  regard  the  powers  of  language,  that  he  had 
gained  from  the  study  of  pagan  literature,  as  spoils  won  from  the 
enemy  to  be  used  to  lend  fresh  force  to  the  cause  of  truth.  In 
the  course  of  the  letter  Paulinus  himself  quotes  Virgil,  and  the 
pleadings  of  his  prose  for  the  recognition  of  Divine  Providence 
are  reinforced  in  a  set  of  166  lines  of  verse1. 

Q.  Aurelius  Symmachus  ( c .  345-405),  prefect  of  Rome  in 
384-5,  and  consul  in  301,  was  a  devoted  adherent 

Symmachus  °  ^  ] 

of  the  old  order.  It  was  in  that  spirit  that,  in  384, 
he  addressed  to  Theodosius  in  his  third  Relatio 2  a  dignified  appeal 
for  the  restoration  of  the  Altar  of  Victory  to  its  place  in  the  Senate 
House,  impressively  pleading  for  religious  toleration  on  the  ground 
that  ‘  the  great  mystery  might  well  be  approached  in  more  ways 
than  one  \  His  general  character  resembles  that  of  Cicero,  while 
his  letters  are  modelled  on  those  of  the  younger  Pliny,  whose 
genus  dicendi  pingue  et  floridum  was  regarded  by  Macrobius3  as 
surviving  in  the  4  luxuriance  ’  of  his  own  earlier  contemporary, 
Symmachus.  4  But  the  luxuriancy  of  Symmachus  ’  (says  Gibbon) 
4  consists  of  barren  leaves,  without  fruits,  and  even  flowers ;  few 
facts,  and  few  sentiments,  can  be  extracted  from  his  verbose 
correspondence’.  As  he  is  apparently  restrained  by  the  fear  of 
dulness  from  relating  incidents  of  the  day,  which  would  have 
been  interesting  to  posterity,  his  letters  are  in  fact  rather  colourless 
compositions4;  but  in  the  times  of  the  Renaissance  they  were 

1  Ep.  1 6  and  Carm.  22.  Cp.  Boissier,  Fin  du  Paganisme,  ii  83 — 5s; 
J.  E.  B.  Mayor,  Latin  Heptateuch,  p.  liv  note. 

2  Bury’s  Gibbon,  iii  192  (c.  28);  cp.  Boissier’s  Fin  du  Paganisme ,  ii  274s, 
and  abstract  in  T.  R.  Glover,  p.  1 54  f. 

3  Saturnalia,  v  1,  7. 

4  In  writing  to  his  brother  (iii  25)  he  says  (apparently  of  a  postscript, 


XII.] 


SYMMACHUS. 


215 


much  admired  by  Politian  and  Pomponius  Laetus.  Eminent  as 
a  scholar,  a  statesman,  and  an  orator,  he  aims  in  general  at  a 
correctly  classical  style,  though  he  sometimes  lapses  into  such 
words  as  genialitas  and  opiimitas ,  and  into  such  constructions  as 
fungi  officium  and  honoris  tui  delector.  But  almost  every  page  of 
his  letters  betrays  his  familiarity  with  the  great  writers  of  the  past. 
He  describes  himself  as  ‘always  loving  literature’  (iv  44).  He 
gives  a  Latin  rendering  of  a  sentence  in  Demosthenes1.  He 
quotes  repeatedly  from  Cicero,  Terence  and  Virgil,  once  from 
Plautus  and  Horace,  and  twice  from  Valerius  Maximus2.  His 
father  mentions  Varro  as  ‘  the  parent  of  Roman  erudition  ’  (£p. 
i  2),  and  assumes  that  the  son  is  familiar  with  Varro’s  epigrams. 
After  369  a.d.,  Symmachus  sends  Ausonius  a  copy  of  part  at 
least  of  Pliny’s  ‘Natural  History’3;  in  396,  he  proposes  to  find  for 
his  distinguished  friend  Protadius  a  copy  of  Pliny’s  ‘German 
Wars  ’,  and  offers  him  Caesar’s  ‘  Gallic  War  ’,  if  he  is  not  satisfied 
with  the  account  of  Caesar  in  the  last  book  of  Livy4.  It  is  clear 
that,  in  the  time  of  Symmachus,  the  whole  of  Livy  was  still  extant. 
In  401  he  presents  his  friend  Valerianus  with  a  complete  tran¬ 
script5;  and  the  interest  in  Livy,  which  was  inspired  by  Symmachus 
and  his  family,  is  still  attested  by  the  subscriptions  to  all  the  books 
of  the  first  decade6.  Three  of  them  bear  the  further  subscription 
of  one  of  the  Nicomachi,  and  three  that  of  the  other7,  both  of 


which  has  not  been  preserved): — ‘subieci  capita  rerum,  quia  (quae?)  complecti 
litteris  fastidii  fuga  nolui  ’.  Elsewhere  he  relegates  the  news  of  the  day  to  an 
index  or  indiculus  or  breviarium ,  which  is  unhappily  lost. 

1  01.  3  §  39,  parvis  nutrimentis  quamquam  a  morte  defendimur,  nihil  tamen 
ad  robustarn  valetudinem  promovemus  ( v .  1.  promovemur),  Ep.  i  23  p.  14 
Seeck. 

2  Seeck’s  Index.  Cp.  Kroll,  De  Symmachi  studiis  Graecis  et  Latinis  (1891). 

3  Ep.  i  23,  Si  te  amor  habet  naturalis  historiae,  quam  Plinius  elaboravit, 
en  tibi  libellos,  quorum  mihi  praesentanea  copia  fuit.  In  quis,  ut  arbitror, 
opulentae  eruditioni  tuae  neglegens  veritatis  librarius  displicebit.  Sed  mihi 
fraudi  non  erit  emendationis  incuria.  Malui  enim  tibi  probari  mei  muneris 
celeritate,  quam  alieni  operis  examine.  Vale. 

4  Ep.  iv  18  p.  104. 

5  Ep.  ix  13,  munus  totius  Liviani  operis,  quod  spopor.di,  etiam  nunc 
diligentia  emendationis  moratur. 

6  Victorianus  v.  c.  emendabam  domnis  Symmachis. 

7  Nicomachus  Dexter  v.  c.  emendavi  ad  exemplum  parentis  mei  Clementiani 


21 6 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


these  revisers  of  the  text  being  connexions  of  Symmachus  by 
marriage.  About  the  same  time,  and  inspired  perhaps  by  his 
example,  other  aristocratic  Romans  interested  themselves  in  the 
revision  of  Latin  mss.  In  401  Torquatus  Gennadius  revised 
the  text  of  Martial;  in  402  FI.  Julius  Tryfonianus  Sabinus,  that 
of  Persius  at  Barcelona,  and  even  that  of  Nonius  Marcellus  at 
Toulouse1.  Symmachus  also  lives  in  literature  as  one  of  the 
principal  interlocutors  in  the  Saturnalia  of  Macrobius,  and  their 
friendship  descended  to  the  third  generation,  for  we  find  the 
great-grandson  of  Symmachus  revising  at  Ravenna  a  copy  of 
the  commentary  of  Macrobius  on  the  ‘  Dream  of  Scipio  ’,  in  the 
company  of  another  Macrobius,  doubtless  a  descendant  of  the 
author2. 

To  the  age  of  Symmachus  are  assigned  the  rhetorical  treatises 
of  (1)  Chirius  Fortunatianus,  the  author  of  a 
catechism  of  rhetoric  founded  on  Quintilian,  with 
illustrations  from  Cicero3;  (2)  Sulpicius  Victor,  a  practical  jurist 
rather  than  a  scholastic  rhetorician  ;  (3)  Julius  Victor,  who  closely 
follows  Quintilian;  and  (4)  Julius  Rufinianus,  the  author  of  a 
supplement  to  Aquila  Romanus,  in  which  figures  of  speech  are 
exemplified  from  Ennius  and  Lucilius,  as  well  as  from  Cicero  and 
Virgil4. 

But  Virgil  was  not  exploited  by  rhetoricians  alone.  After  the 
first  quarter  of  the  fourth  century  Virgil  (to  a  far 
Syirgii°f  greater  degree  than  Lucretius,  Ovid,  Lucan  and 
Horace)  was  imitated  by  the  sacred  poet  Juvencus 
{c.  330),  who  was  highly  popular  in  the  time  of  Petrarch  as  well 
as  in  that  of  Charles  the  Great5.  He  was  tortured  into  a  sacred 
cento  by  Proba,  the  ‘  incomparable  wife  ’  of  a  praefect  of  Rome, 


Rhetoricians 


(end  of  Books  iii,  iv,  v) :  Nicomachus  Flavianus  v.  c.  iii  praefect.  urbis 
emendavi  apud  Hennam  (end  of  Books  vi,  vii,  viii).  Teuffel,  §  256,  it; 
§  428,  2.  See  facsimile  on  p.  236. 

1  Teuffel,  §  322,  8  and  §  302,  5  (also  §  404%  5);  cp.  Grafenhan,  iv  383  f. 

2  ib.  §  444,  8.  On  subscriptions  in  general,  see  Jahn  in  Sachs.  Berichte, 
1851,  pp.  327 — 372.  A  ms  of  Apuleius  was  revised  by  one  Crispus  Salustius 
in  395  in  Rome,  and  again  in  397  in  Constantinople  (ib.  p.  331). 

3  Saintsbury,  i  346. 

4  Teuffel,  §  427;  texts  of  all  these  in  Halm,  Rhet.  Lat.  Min. 

5  Ebert,  i3  1 17. 


XII.] 


THE  STUDY  OF  VIRGIL. 


217 


about  the  middle  of  the  century1,  and  into  a  profane  cento  by 
Ausonius  towards  its  close.  He  was  the  theme  of  commentaries 
(as  we  shall  shortly  see)  by  Servius  and  Macrobius.  He  was  the 
favourite  poet  of  the  schoolmaster;  and  fathers  of  the  Church, 
like  St  Jerome  and  St  Augustine,  confess  how  deeply  they  had 
been  interested  in  him  in  their  youthful  days2.  A  pleasant  picture 
of  the  interest  in  Virgil,  which  was  felt  in  Gaul  late  in  this  century, 
is  presented  to  us  in  a  letter  written  by  Rusticus  (possibly  the 
bishop  of  Narbonne  from  c.  430  to  461)  to  Eucherius,  bishop  of 
Lyons  from  435  to  450  a.d.  The  writer  recalls  what  he  had  read 
as  a  boy  (probably  about  400  a.d.)  in  the  library  of  a  student  of 
secular  literature.  The  library,  he  tells  us,  was  adorned  with 
‘portraits  of  orators  and  poets,  worked  in  mosaic,  or  in  wax  of 
different  colours,  or  in  plaster ;  and  under  each  the  master  of  the 
house  had  placed  inscriptions  noting  their  characteristics ;  but, 
when  he  came  to  an  author  of  acknowledged  merit ’  (as  for  in¬ 
stance,  Virgil)  ‘  he  began  as  follows  ’  (adding  three  lines  from 
Virgil  himself) : — 

Virgilium  vatem  melius  sua  carmina  laudant ; 

‘  In  freta  dum  fluvii  current,  dum  montibus  umbrae 
Lustrabunt  convexa,  polus  dum  sidera  pascet, 

Semper  honos  nomenque  tuum  laudesque  manebunt  ’. 

Virgil  is  lauded  best  in  Virgil’s  lays: — 

‘  As  long  as  rivers  run  into  the  deep, 

As  long  as  shadows  o’er  the  hillside  sweep, 

As  long  as  stars  in  heaven’s  fair  pastures  graze, 

So  long  shall  live  your  honour,  name,  and  praise’3. 

The  middle  of  the  fourth  century  marks  the  date  of  a  gram¬ 
marian  and  rhetorician  of  African  origin,  C.  Marius 

.  #  Victorinus 

Victorinus4,  the  author  of  several  philosophical  and 

rhetorical  works  (including  a  prolix  commentary  on  Cicero  De 
Invent/one5),  and  also  of  a  treatise  on  metre  in  four  books,  founded 

1  Corp.  Inscr.  Lat.  vi  1712.  Ebert,  i2  125. 

2  Comparetti,  Virgilio  nel  Medio  Evo,  i  cap.  1 — 5 ;  Schanz,  §  247  ( Vergils 
Fortleben  im  Altertum). 

3  Conington’s  rendering  of  Aen.  i  607  f.  Cp.  Migne,  lviii  489;  Lanciani’s 
Ancient  Rome  (1888),  p.  196;  and  J.  W.  Clark’s  Care  of  Books,  p.  43. 

4  Teuffel,  §  408,  1 ;  Jeep’s  Redetheile ,  pp.  82 — 9. 

5  Halm,  Rhet.  Lat .  Min.  155 — 304;  cp.  Saintsbury,  i  348. 


218 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


mainly  on  the  Greek  of  Aphthonius.  He  received  the  literary 
distinction  of  a  statue  in  the  forum  of  Trajan.  It  is  interesting  to 
remember  that  the  study  of  his  Latin  rendering  of  certain  ‘Platonic’ 
works  had  an  important  influence  on  the  religious  development  of 
St  Augustine1,  who  records  the  fact  that  late  in  life  their  translator 
became  a  convert  to  Christianity2 *.  The  illiberal  decree  of  Julian 
(as  already  mentioned)  led  to  the  resignation  of  his  appointment 
as  a  Christian  teacher  in  362s. 

Among  his  distinguished  contemporaries  was  the  grammarian 
and  rhetorician  Aelius  Donatus,  the  author  of  a 

Donatus 

Grammar,  which  has  come  down  to  us  in  a  shorter 
and  in  a  longer  form4;  also  of  a  valuable  commentary  on  Terence5, 
which  has  been  combined  with  one  or  two  others  in  the  extant 
scholia  on  Terence,  and  of  a  commentary  on  Virgil,  frequently 
cited  by  Servius6 7.  Two  other  grammarians,  who  were  contem¬ 
poraries  with  one  another,  and  had  much  in  common,  are  Charisius 
and  Diomedes,  the  former  of  whom  transcribed 

Diomedes  large  portions  of  the  works  of  Julius  Romanus, 
Cominianus,  and  Palaemon,  and  thus  preserved  for 
us  much  of  the  earlier  grammatical  teaching,  while  the  latter 
borrowed  much  from  the  lost  work  of  Suetonius,  de  po'etis1 .  Pas¬ 
sages  from  the  grammatical  treatises  of  Varro  are  included  in  the 
works  of  both8. 

In  the  latter  half  of  the  fourth  century  Maurus  (or  Marius) 
Servius  Honoratus  (born  c.  333)  was  famous  as  a 

Servius  ...  '  ojj/ 

Virgihan  commentator,  whose  work  owes  much  of 
its  value  to  its  wealth  of  mythological,  geographical  and  historical 
learning.  It  has  come  down  to  us  in  two  forms,  a  longer  and  a 
shorter.  The  longer  was  regarded  as  the  genuine  commentary  by 

1  Conf.  vii  9. 

2  ib.  viii  2.  3  ib.  viii  5. 

4  Jeep,  pp.  24 — 8.  It  is  the  theme  of  extant  commentaries  by  Servius  and 
others  {ib.  28 — 56);  and  continued  to  be  a  text-book  throughout  the  Middle 

Ages.  In  old  French,  and  in  the  English  of  Longland  and  Chaucer,  Donat 
or  Donets  synonymous  with  ‘grammar’,  or  indeed  with  any  kind  of  ‘lesson’ 

(Warton’s  English  Poetry,  sect.  viii).  6  ed.  Wersner,  1902. 

6  Teuffel,  §  409;  Nettleship  in  Conington’s  Virgil,  i4  p.c^ 

7  ib.  §  419. 

8  Wilmanns,  De  Varronis  libris  grammaticis,  pp.  152 — 5,  172. 


XII.] 


VICTORINUS.  DONATUS.  SERVIUS. 


219 


Scaliger  and  Ribbeck ;  the  shorter  by  Ottfried  Muller  and  Thilo 
(ed.  1878-87).  It  has  been  shown  by  Nettleship  that  Servius 
and  Isidore  used  the  same  original  authorities,  especially  Suetonius, 
and  that  passages  in  which  Servius  seems  to  be  copying  from 
Donatus  are  probably  copied  from  an  earlier  authority,  Nonius, 
and  ultimately  from  Verrius  Flaccus1.  His  commentary  is  further 
founded  on  materials  borrowed,  possibly  at  second  or  third  hand, 
from  Cato,  Varro,  Nigidius  and  Hyginus.  It  is  a  vast  treasure- 
house  of  traditional  lore.  The  author  displays  great  erudition,  as 
well  as  a  certain  aptitude  for  verbal  exposition,  and  perhaps  an 
over-fondness  for  pointing  out  the  rhetorical  figures  used  by  the 
poet ;  but  he  supplies  practically  nothing  that  is  worth  calling 
literary  criticism.  He  tells  us  that  the  fourth  Aeneid  is  borrowed 
from  Apollonius  Rhodius ;  and,  in  the  introduction  to  the  Georgies , 
notes  that  Virgil  has  followed  Homer  at  a  distance  in  the  Aeneid, 
has  proved  himself  second  to  Theocritus  in  the  Eclogues ,  and 
has  greatly  surpassed  Hesiod  in  the  Georgies 2. 

In  the  same  century  the  most  scholarly  representative  of 
Christianity  was  Hieronymus,  commonly  called  St  ^  ^ 
Jerome  (331-420  a.d.),  who  is  celebrated  as  the 
unwearied  translator  and  expositor  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa¬ 
ments.  As  a  youth  he  was  sent  to  Rome,  where  he  became  a 
pupil  of  Donatus3.  He  has  himself  recorded  in  his  commentary 
on  the  book  of  Ecclesiastes  (i  9)  that  his  teacher,  in  expounding 
the  line  in  Terence,  nullum  est  iam  dictum ,  quod  non  dictum  sit 
prius 4,  used  the  words  which  have  since  passed  into  a  proverb : 
pereant  qui  nostra  ante  nos  dixerunt.  He  also  studied  the  Greek 
philosophers,  and  laboriously5  formed  for  himself  a  library.  From 
Rome  he  went  to  Trier,  where  he  studied  theology,  and  felt 
himself  called  to  a  new  life.  After  continuing  his  studies  at 

1  Essays ,  i  322 — 340,  and  in  Conington’s  Virgil  i4  pp.  ciii — evii. 

2  Cp.  Suringar,  ii  59 — 92;  Thomas,  Essai  (1880);  Teuffel,  §  431;  and 
Schanz,  §  248;  also  Saintsbury,  i  334 — 340. 

3  Apol.  adv.  Rufinum ,  i  16,  puto  quod  puer  legeris... commentaries. ..in 
Terentii  comoedias  praeceptoris  ?nei  Donati,  aeque  in  Vergilium ;  Chron. 
356 — 7  A.D.,  Victorinus  rhetor  et  Donatus  praeceptor  mens  Romae  insignes 
habentur. 

4  Eunuchus,  prol.  41. 

5  Ep.  22,  c.  30,  summo  studio  et  labore. 


220 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Aquileia,  he  embarked  for  the  East,  where  he  lay  ill  for  a  long 
time  in  Syria,  reflecting  with  remorse  on  the  past,  but  finding 
some  respite  in  reading  his  favourite  authors,  such  as  Plautus 
and  Cicero,  while  he  cared  little  (as  he  confesses)  for  the  uncouth 
Latin  of  the  Psalms.  At  last  he  fell  into  a  fever  and  dreamt  that 
he  was  dead,  and  that  he  was  being  dragged  before  the  tribunal 
of  the  Judge  of  all  men.  Falling  on  his  face  to  hide  himself  from 
the  brightness  of  the  vision,  he  heard  an  awful  voice  demanding, 
‘  Who  art  thou  ?  ’  On  his  answering,  ‘  A  Christian  ’,  he  heard  with 
trembling  the  terrible  reply  : — £  It  is  false ;  thou  art  no  Christian  ; 
thou  art  a  Ciceronian  ;  where  the  treasure  is,  there  is  the  heart 
also’1.  From  that  hour  (in  the  year  374  a.d.)  he  renounced  the 
reading  of  the  ancient  classics,  buried  himself  in  the  desert 
between  Antioch  and  the  Euphrates,  leading  a  hermit’s  life  for 
five  years  and  engaging  after  a  while  in  manual  labour  and 
ultimately  in  the  transcription  of  mss.  As  a  further  means  of 
self-discipline,  he  devoted  himself  to  the  study  of  Hebrew. 
Returning  to  Antioch,  he  went  to  Constantinople  (380),  where 
he  studied  under  Gregory  of  Nazianzus,  and  also  completed  his 
knowledge  of  Greek.  One  of  the  most  important  fruits  of  this 
study  was  his  translation  of  the  Chronicle  of  Eusebius,  which, 
in  its  original  Greek,  now  survives  in  fragments  alone.  Two 
years  afterwards  he  returned  to  Rome,  where  he  lived  for  three 
years  as  the  Secretary  of  pope  Damasus  (382-5).  Near  the 
theatre  of  Pompey  in  the  Campus  Martius  that  Pope  had  built  a 
library  for  the  archives  of  the  Latin  Church,  and  this  building, 
which  is  called  by  Jerome  the  char  tar  ium  ecclesiae  Roma?iae 2,  is 
supposed  by  some3  to  have  been  connected  with  colonnades  after 
the  manner  of  the  great  pagan  libraries  of  Rome,  which  had  been 
modelled  on  that  of  Pergamon  (p.  157  f).  At  the  instance  of  the 
pope,  Jerome  now  began  his  revision  of  the  Latin  Bible,  and  in 
due  time  completed  his  rendering  of  the  Gospels  and  the  Psalms. 
In  385  he  left  for  Palestine,  where  he  founded  a  monastery  at 
Bethlehem  (386).  There,  as  in  the  desert,  he  set  the  example  of 
a  monastic  life  mainly  devoted  to  literary  labour.  In  his  cell  at 

1  Ep.  22,  c.  30. 

2  Apol.  adv.  Rufinum ,  ii  20  (J.  W.  Clark’s  Care  of  Books,  p.  42). 

3  De  Rossi  and  Lanciani  (ib.  p.  43). 


XII.] 


ST  JEROME. 


221 


Bethlehem  (a  subject  which  has  caught  the  fancy  of  Diirer1)  he 
was  constantly  adding  to  his  store  of  books.  He  lectured  his 
monks  on  theology,  and  gathered  round  him  a  school  of  boys, 
whom  he  instructed  in  grammar  and  in  the  classical  authors, 
especially  in  Plautus,  Terence  and,  above  all,  in  Virgil.  Here 
the  learned  scholar  was  in  his  true  element :  the  ‘  Ciceronian  ’ 
and  the  ‘  Christian  ’  were  reconciled  with  one  another.  He 
resumed  his  study  of  Hebrew  and  worked  at  his  Latin  rendering 
of  the  Old  Testament,  his  treatise  De  viris  illustribus  (in  imitation 
of  that  of  Suetonius),  and  much  besides.  His  monastery  was 
attacked  by  Pelagians  in  416,  and  his  last  years  at  Bethlehem 
(where  he  died  in  420)  wrere  embittered  by  the  incursions  of 
barbarians2. 

His  Letters ,  extending  from  370  to  419,  were  very  popular 
during  the  Middle  Ages  and  the  Renaissance.  They  abound  in 
quotations  from  his  favourite  classical  authors,  and  from  Virgil  in 
particular.  The  suicide  of  Judas,  the  wiles  of  the  Tempter,  the 
inroads  of  the  barbarians,  the  enmity  of  the  monks,  and  the  gloom 
of  the  catacombs,  are  all  of  them  suggestive  of  quotations  from 
Virgil  (35  and  49).  He  also  cites  Ennius  and  Naevius,  Plautus 
and  Terence,  Cicero  and  Sallust,  Horace  and  Juvenal.  In  the 
very  letter  (34)  in  which  he  regrets  an  excessive  use  of  rhetoric, 
and  is  penitent  for  an  undue  partiality  for  scholastic  learning,  he 
lapses  into  references  to  Greek  philosophers  such  as  Pythagoras, 
Democritus,  Xenocrates,  Plato,  Zeno  and  Cleanthes ;  Greek  poets 
such  as  Homer,  Hesiod,  Simonides,  Stesichorus  and  Sophocles ; 
not  to  mention  Roman  writers  such  as  Cato  the  Censor,  and 
others3.  In  one  of  his  letters  (70)  he  justifies  his  frequent 
citations  from  secular  literature;  in  another  (60,  5)  he  shows 
himself  fully  conscious  of  the  merits  of  the  famous  generals, 
‘whose  manly  virtues  illuminate  the  history  of  Rome’;  in  a 
third  (57)  he  discusses  the  best  method  of  translation,  defending 
his  own  plan  of  rendering  the  Scriptures  according  to  their  sense 
rather  than  in  the  slavish  spirit  of  a  merely  verbal  literalism.  ‘  In 
his  fearless  determination  to  ascertain  the  precise  meaning  of  the 

1  For  its  treatment  by  other  artists,  cp.  J.  W.  Clark,  Care  of  Books ,  figs. 
140,  149*  r53' 

2  Ebert,  i2  184 — 192. 


3  Boissier,  i  327 — 334s. 


222 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


sacred  text,  he  offers  a  splendid  example  of  rare  candour  and 
patient  industry’1.  In  sacred  literature  his  most  famous  achieve¬ 
ment  is  the  Latin  Vulgate ;  in  general  scholarship,  his  translation 
and  continuation  of  the  Chronological  Canons  of  Eusebius,  with 
additions  from  Suetonius  and  his  successors  down  to  325,  and 
from  his  own  researches  between  that  date  and  378  a.d.  These 
additions  can  be  identified  with  the  aid  of  the  Armenian  translation 
of  Eusebius,  discovered  in  17872.  We  catch  a  glimpse  of  the 
literary  methods  of  the  age  in  the  preface  to  Jerome’s  translation, 
which  he  describes  as  a  hasty  production  very  rapidly  dictated  to 
a  shorthand  writer.  He  concludes  his  treatise  De  viris  illustribus 
by  translating  from  Irenaeus3  a  solemn  adjuration  requiring  every 
future  copyist  to  compare4  his  transcript  with  the  ms  from  which 
he  makes  his  copy,  and  to  correct5  it,  and  also  to  transcribe  the 
form  of  adjuration.  A  similar  form,  described  as  the  obtestatio 
Eusebii ,  appears  at  the  beginning  of  certain  mss  of  Jerome’s  trans¬ 
lation  of  the  Canons6. 

St  Augustine  (354-430)  must  here  be  noticed  very  briefly,  and 

solely  in  connexion  with  the  subject  of  the  present 

St  Augustine  r  ...  J  r 

work.  The  story  of  his  life  is  unfolded  to  us  in  his 
immortal  Confessions.  He  there  tells  us  that,  as  a  boy,  he  liked 
Latin,  as  soon  as  he  had  got  beyond  the  elements ;  while  he  hated 
Greek,  though  he  could  assign  no  sufficient  reason  for  his  hatred7. 
He  admits,  and  regrets,  his  early  fondness  for  Virgil,  lamenting 
(above  all)  the  tears  that  he  had  shed  over  the  death  of  Dido,  and 
recalling  with  penitence  his  boyish  delight  in  the  story  of  the 
‘  wooden  horse  ’  and  the  burning  of  Troy  and  the  ghost  of 


1  Dill’s  Roman  Society ,  p.  125. 

2  A.  Schone,  Ensebi  chronicorum  libri  duo ,  1866 — 75. — Cp.  Teuffel,  §  434, 
9,  and  Ebert,  i2  207 — 210. 

3  ap.  Euseb.  Hist.  Reel,  v  20. 

4  dvrij. 3a\r]s  is  the  word  used  by  Irenaeus ;  cp.  Strabo,  609. 

5  emendes  (in  the  lower  sense);  cp.  Ep.  52;  Suet.  Dom.  20;  Symmachus, 
i  18. 

6  Jahn,  in  Sachs.  Berichte ,  1851,  p.  367. 

7  Conf.  i  13,  20,  Quid  autem  erat  causae  cur  Graecas  litteras  oderam, 
quibus  puerulus  imbuebar,  ne  nunc  quidem  satis  exploratum  est.  Adamaveram 
enim  Latinas,  non  quas  primi  magistri,  sed  quas  docent  qui  grammatici 
vocantur. 


XII.] 


ST  AUGUSTINE. 


223 


Creusa1.  Homer  he  hated,  apparently  because  the  language 
(unlike  his  native  Latin)  was  strange  to  him2.  At  the  age  of 
19  he  received  his  first  serious  impressions  from  the  Hortensius 
of  Cicero3,  an  eloquent  call  to  the  study  of  philosophy,  which 
is  now  lost  with  the  exception  of  a  few  fragments.  At  20  he 
studied  for  himself  the  Categories  of  Aristotle4,  and  a  series  of 
works  on  the  ‘liberal  arts’5.  In  383  he  left  Carthage  for  Rome, 
and,  half  a  year  later,  on  the  recommendation  of  Symmachus, 
then  praefect  of  Rome,  was  appointed  teacher  of  rhetoric  at  Milan. 
He  there  found  a  friend  in  Ambrose.  At  the  age  of  31  we  see 
him  studying,  in  the  quest  of  truth,  certain  ‘Platonic’  works 
translated  into  Latin  by  Victorinus6.  In  the  autumn  of  the 
following  year  he  resigned  his  appointment,  and  withdrew  with 
his  mother  and  son  and  a  few  friends  to  a  country-house 
(Cassiacum)  near  Milan,  there  to  prepare  himself  for  his  baptism, 
which  took  place  at  Easter,  387.  Part  of  his  time  during  this 
period  of  retirement  was  occupied  in  the  study  of  Virgil  and  in  a 
general  survey  of  the  ‘liberal  arts’,  and  the  literary  work,  which 
he  had  thus  begun,  was  resumed  on  his  return  to  Milan.  But  we 
are  here  concerned  only  with  the  cyclopaedia  of  the  liberal 
arts,  which  he  now  began  in  imitation  of  Varro’s  Disciplinae.  It 
was  intended  to  be  a  survey  of  all  the  arts,  viz.  grammar,  logic, 
rhetoric,  music,  geometry,  arithmetic  and  philosophy  (this  last 
taking  the  place  of  astronomy) ;  but  only  the  part  on  grammar 
was  then  completed,  while  a  portion  of  that  on  music,  and  intro¬ 
ductions  to  the  rest,  were  finished  at  a  later  date7.  All  that  has 
survived  is  the  dialogue  on  music,  and  abridgements  of  the  work 
on  grammar,  with  parts  of  the  introductions  to  rhetoric  and  logic, 
though  the  authorship  of  the  last  two  has  been  disputed.  The 
work  on  rhetoric8  is  founded  on  Hermagoras,  the  Rhodian 
instructor  of  Cicero,  and  on  Cicero  himself ;  it  is  only  preserved 
in  mss  of  Fortunatianus  (p.  216);  while  the  work  on  logic 

1  Conf.  i  §§  20 — 22. 

2  ib.  23,  Cur  ergo  Graecam  grammaticam  oderam  talia  cantantem  ?  Nam 
et  Homerus  peritus  texere  tales  fabellas,  et  dulcissime  vanus  est,  et  mihi  tamen 
amarus  erat  puero  etc. 

3  ib.  iii  4,  7,  viii  7,  17.  4  ib.  iv  16,  28. 

5  ib.  iv  16,  30.  6  ib.  vii  9,  13;  viii  2,  3  (supra,  p.  217). 

7  Retract,  i  c.  6.  8  Halm,  Rhet.  Lat.  Min.  137 — 151. 


224 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


(. Principia  Dialecticae\  in  the  course  of  which  Augustine  is 
mentioned  as  the  author,  is  one  of  our  authorities  on  the 
Grammar  of  the  Stoics1.  In  388  Augustine  returned  to  Africa, 
where  he  became  Presbyter  of  Hippo  in  391  and  Bishop  from 
396  to  his  death  in  430.  He  lives  in  general  literature  as  the 
author  of  the  Confessions  (a  favourite  book  with  Petrarch  and 
many  since  his  time),  and  the  De  Civitate  Dei ,  which  was  finished 
in  426  a.d.  In  the  latter  he  quotes  largely  from  Varro’s  Antiqui- 
tates  (especially  the  account  of  the  distinctively  Roman  divinities2), 
and  from  Cicero’s  treatise  De  Republica.  He  has  thus  preserved 
for  us  considerable  portions  of  both  of  those  important  works3. 

To  the  end  of  the  fourth  and  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century 
belongs  Macrobius,  the  author  of  an  extant  com- 

Macrobius  . 

mentary  on  Cicero’s  Dream  of  Scipio  (in  the  sixth 
book  of  the  De  Republica ),  and  of  a  miscellaneous  work  in  seven 
books  under  the  name  of  Saturnalia.  The  latter  is  in  the  form 
of  a  dialogue  dealing  with  a  vast  number  of  topics  connected 
with  the  earlier  Roman  literature  and  religion.  The  scene  of  the 
dialogue  is  the  house  of  Vettius  Agorius  Praetextatus,  an  expert 
in  augural  and  pontifical  law,  who  died  in  384.  As  statesman, 
scholar,  antiquarian,  philosopher  and  mystic,  he  was  then  one  of 
the  most  eminent  in  the  heathen  world  of  Rome.  He  translated 
the  Analytics  of  Aristotle,  and  spent  part  of  his  leisure  in  emending 
the  text  of  the  ancient  Classics4.  He  is  now  best  known  as  the 
restorer  in  367  of  the  Porticus  Deonun  Consent  him,  still  to  be 
seen  near  the  Clivus  Capitolinus.  He  also  lives  in  the  interesting 
inscriptions  addressed  by  himself  to  his  wife,  and  by  his  wife  to 

1  Supra ,  p.  146.  The  work  must  have  been  founded  either  on  the  corre¬ 
sponding  part  of  Varro’s  Disciplinae ,  or  on  the  first  book  of  the  De  Lingua 
Latma  (Wilmanns,  De  Varronis  libris  grammaticis ,  pp.  16 — 19);  and,  in 
either  case,  Varro’s  own  authority  was  probably  a  grammarian  writing  under 
Stoic  influence,  possibly  Philoxenus,  who  may  well  have  been  a  contemporary 
of  Varro  (Reitzenstein,  M.  Ter.  Varro ,  p.  87). 

2  Francken’s  Fragmenta  Varronis  (1836). 

3  Teuffel,  §  440,  7  and  10  ;  Ebert,  i2  212 — 251.  On  St  Augustine’s  attitude 
towards  literature,  cp.  Saintsbury,  i  378  f ;  and  on  his  Confessions,  T.  R. 
Glover,  Life  and  Letters  in  the  Fourth  Century ,  194 — 213. 

4  ‘meliora  reddis  quam  legendo  sumpseras’  (Biicheler’s  Anth.  Lat.,  no. 
111,  1.  12). 


XII.] 


MACROBIUS. 


225 


her  husband,  which  present  us  with  a  pleasant  picture  of  their 
devotion  to  each  other  and  to  the  varied  religious  rites  of  their 
time1.  Among  the  interlocutors  are  the  scholar  and  statesman 
Symmachus  (p.  214),  and  Servius,  here  represented  as  a  modest 
student  of  Virgil,  who  naturally  takes  an  important  part  in  the 
lengthy  discussions  on  that  poet.  The  author  is  sometimes  identi¬ 
fied  with  Macrobius  the  Praefectus  praetorio  Hispaniarum  (399), 
the  proconsul  of  Africa  (410),  the  vir  illustris  and  the  praepositus 
sacri  cubiculi  of  422  a.d.2  The  first  of  these  dates  is  connected 
with  an  edict  forbidding  the  destruction  of  the  treasures  of  art  in 
the  temples  of  Spain  and  Gaul,  and  the  praefect  of  that  date  may 
well  have  been  a  pagan.  But  the  holder  of  the  office  named  in 
422  must  have  been  a  Christian;  whereas,  at  the  dramatic  date  of 
the  Saturnalia  ( c .  380),  its  author  was  an  admirer  of  Symmachus 
and  others  of  the  pagan  party,  and  a  devout  worshipper  of  the 
gods  of  polytheism,  with  a  strong  inclination  towards  Neo-platonic 
views.  Thus,  unless  we  assume  either  a  complete  change  of  belief 
or  a  merely  nominal  acceptance  of  Christianity  at  a  later  date 
than  that  of  the  composition  of  the  Saturnalia ,  there  are  great 
difficulties  in  the  proposed  identification.  The  fact  remains  that 
the  extant  works  of  Macrobius  contain  no  mention  of  any  person 
or  thing  connected  with  Christianity.  Their  author  was  not  a 
native  of  Rome ;  he  may  have  been  born  in  Africa  or  (more 
probably)  in  Greece.  At  any  rate  his  name  is  Greek,  he  has 
some  knowledge  even  of  recondite  portions  of  Greek  literature, 
and  he  is  the  writer  of  a  grammatical  treatise  on  the  differences 
between  the  verb  in  Latin  and  the  verb  in  Greek3. 

In  the  Saturnalia  he  deals  largely  with  matters  of  mythology 
and  grammar,  including  etymology  (naturally  of  a  praescientific 
type) ;  but  the  discussion  turns  mainly  on  the  varied  and 
comprehensive  merits  of  Virgil.  This  discussion  is  started  in 
an  interesting  passage  at  the  end  of  the  first  book,  and  is 
continued  (after  an  interval)  throughout  books  111  to  vi.  The 

1  Corp.  Inscr.  Lat.  vi  1778 — 9  (Blicheler,  l.c.).  Cp.  Dill’s  Roman  Society , 
pp.  17,  18,  77,  154  f;  and  Glover,  pp.  162 — 4. 

2  Teuffel,  §  444,  1  and  7. 

3  ib.  9;  Glover,  pp.  171 — 2.  Erasmus,  Ciceronianus,  p.  148,  regards 
Macrobius  as  a  Graeculus.  The  treatise  on  the  Greek  Verb  was  abridged  by 
Erigena  (Tillemont,  Emp.  v  664). 

s.  15 


226 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


first  of  these  books  proves  the  poet  s  accurate  knowledge  of 
religious  ritual :  the  next  gives  examples  of  his  command  of  the 
resources  of  rhetoric :  book  v  compares  him  with  Homer  and 
includes  (as  in  Gellius)  a  parallel  between  Pindar  s  description  of 
Aetna  and  Virgil's,  while  book  vi  dwells  on  Virgil's  indebtedness 
to  the  earlier  Latin  poets,  and  concludes  with  a  long  series  of 
verbal  criticisms  assigned  to  the  character  of  Servius  (vi  6-9) l *. 
Book  vii.  which  owes  much  to  the  Convivial  Questions  of 
Plutarch,  includes  (among  many  other  matters)  a  lengthy  account 
of  the  Roman  calendar. 

The  author  once  borrows  tacitly  from  Seneca1  and  far  more 
frequendy  from  Gellius  and  Suetonius,  and  certain  ancient  com¬ 
mentators  on  Virgil,  besides  citations  from  Plutarch  and  Athenaeus, 
with  extracts  from  Didymus.  He  also  has  a  number  of  references 
to  Cicero,  but  only  two  to  Catullus  and  Horace,  one  to  Persius, 
three  to  Juvenal  and  many  to  minor  grammarians,  his  main 
interest  being  reserv  ed  for  Virgil  and  his  predecessors.  But  ‘  it  is 
Virgil's  learning  that  appeals  to  him  rather  than  his  poetry,  and 
while  there  is  much  truth  in  what  he  savs  of  Virgil's  felicitv  in 
using  his  knowledge  of  antiquity  and  literature,  it  is  absurd  to 
make  it,  as  he  does,  Virgil's  chief  claim  to  distinction'3.  The 
Saturnalia ,  notwithstanding  its  misconception  of  Virgil's  poetry, 
has  naturally  been  largely  quoted  by  modem  editors  of  the  poet4 5. 
At  the  dramatic  date  of  the  dialogue  Servius  was  a  young  man 
who  had  not  yet  written  his  Commentary  on  Virgil,  but  he 
may  have  written  it  before  the  composition  of  the  Saturnalia *. 
Between  the  Saturnalia  and  the  Commentary  there  are  some 
points  in  common6,  and  it  is  questioned  whether  Macrobius  is 

1  Cp.  Saintsbury.  i  339 — 334,  and  Glover,  173 — 185. 

1  Ep.  47  §  5,  in  Sat.  i  11,  13. 

s  Glover,  p.  18 1. 

*  Cp.  Xettleship  on  Virgil  and  his  ancient  critics  in  Conington's  Virgil 
ed.  iSSi,  i  pp.  xxix — lvi. 

5  His  oral  teaching  alone  is  mentioned  by  Macrobius: — i  3,  15,  Servius 
inter  grammatical  doctorem  recens  professus ;  vi  6,  1 ,  nunc  dicat  volo  Servius 
quae  in  Vergilio  notaverit... ;  CotiJic  enim  Romanac  indoli  cnarrando  tun  Jem 
z  at  cm  necesse  est  habeat  huius  adnotationis  scientiam  promptiorem. 

*  Sat.  iii  10 — 13,  and  Servius  on  Aen.  iii  31,  iv  57,  viii  279,  285;  also  Sat. 
i  15,  10  and  17,  14,  and  Servius  on  Acn.  viii  654  and  i  8. 


XII.] 


MACROBIUS. 


227 


borrowing  from  Servius,  or  wrhether  our  text  of  Servius  has  been 
interpolated  from  that  of  Macrobius1.  As  a  point  of  modem 
interest  we  may  remember  that  Dr  Johnson,  at  the  age  of  19  and 
on  the  evening  of  his  arrival  as  a  freshman  in  Oxford,  sat  silent 
in  the  presence  of  his  father  and  his  tutor,  but,  in  the  course 
of  their  conversation,  ‘suddenly  struck  in  and  quoted  Macrobius’2. 
Whether  it  wTas  a  precept  of  conduct  in  social  life,  or  an  ap¬ 
propriate  anecdote,  or  a  criticism  on  Virgil  which  w~as  then 
quoted,  we  cannot  tell ;  but  we  may  be  certain  that  on  that 
occasion  the  future  commentator  on  Shakespeare  could  not  have 
been  better  described  than  in  the  words  applied  by  Macrobius 
to  the  future  commentator  on  Virgil,  who  is  characterised  in 
the  Saturnalia  as  iuxta  doctrina  7/iirabilis  et  amabilis  verecundia 

(i  2»  i5)- 

The  Commentary  on  the  Dream  of  Scipio  is  many  times 
longer  than  the  text;  w’hich  it  has  happily  preserved.  It  includes 
not  a  few  digressions  on  Neo-platonic  topics,  as  well  as  on  myths 
and  matters  of  astronomy,  including  the  *  music  of  the  spheres  ’ 
(ii  3,  7,  n).  Here,  as  in  the  Saturnalia ,  the  author  is  not  original, 
but  admits  his  obligations  to  Plotinus  and  others3.  His  general 
aim  is  to  support  Plato  and  Cicero  in  maintaining  the  existence 
of  a  life  beyond  the  grave,  and  incidentally  he  sees  in  Homer’s 
‘  golden  chain  ’  suspended  between  heaven  and  earth  a  series  of 
links  successively  descending  from  the  supreme  God  to  the  lowest 
of  his  creatures.  We  are  not  here  concerned  'with  the  rest 
of  the  contents  of  the  Commentary4.  It  may  be  added,  how¬ 
ever,  that  the  treatise  wras  much  admired  in  the  Middle  Ages. 
Its  author  is  described  as  ‘no  mean  philosopher’  by  Abelard, 
and  is  quoted  as  an  authority  on  Neo-platonism  by  St  Thomas 
Aquinas 5. 

1  It  seems  most  probable  that  *  both  Macrobius  and  Servius  were  drawing 
upon  older  commentaries  and  criticisms,’  such  as  the  A cneidomastix  of  Carvi- 
lius  Pictor,  the  vitia  of  Herennius,  the  furta  of  Perellius  Faustus,  and  the  liber 
contra  oblrectatores  Vcrgilii  of  Asconius  (Nettleship,  in  Conington,  i4  li — liii). 

a  Boswell  (31  Oct.  1728),  i  32  ed.  Napier. 

s  He  owes  much  to  Porphyry  On  the  Timaeus  (Linke,  Abh.f.  AI.  Hertz). 

4  They  are  well  analysed  in  Dill,  106 — 112,  and  in  Glover,  186 — 193. 

5  Petit,  De  Macrobio  Ciceronis  Interpret e  (1S66)  c.  ix  and  pp.  72,  79 
(Glover,  p.  187  note  1). 


15—2 


228 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


In  northern  Africa,  before  its  conquest  by  the  Vandals, 
Martianus  Capella  produced  ( c .  410-427) 1  an  ency- 
MCapeSaS  clopaedia  of  the  seven  liberal  arts  in  the  form  of 
an  allegory  representing  the  marriage  of  Mercury 
and  Philologia,  who  is  attended  by  seven  bridesmaids  personifying 
the  liberal  arts.  The  work  is  chiefly  founded  on  Varro’s  Disci- 
plinae ;  the  book  on  Rhetoric  (v)  is  mainly  taken  from  Aquila 
Romanus  ;  that  on  Geometry  and  Geography  (vi),  from  Solinus 
and  Pliny;  and  that  on  Music  (ix),  from  Aristides  Quintilianus. 
As  in  Varro’s  Satura  Me?iippea ,  the  prose  is  often  varied  with 
verse;  and  the  verse,  in  spite  of  certain  ‘false  quantities’,  is 
pleasanter  reading  than  the  prose,  which  oscillates  between  the 
two  extremes  of  being,  at  one  time  tame  and  jejune,  at  another 
over-florid  and  bombastic.  The  story  of  the  allegory  is  introduced 
in  the  first  two  books.  Mercury,  having  resolved  on  wedding  a 
wife,  consults  Apollo,  who  speaks  in  the  highest  terms  of  a 
doctissima  virgo  named  Philologia.  The  bride  is  raised  to  divine 
rank  and,  after  she  has  been  compelled,  with  some  reluctance,  to 
abjure  all  her  learning,  is  carried  off  to  heaven  amid  the  songs  of 
the  Muses.  The  seven  following  books  are  devoted  to  a  de*scrip- 
tion  of  the  persons  and  attributes  of  the  seven  bridesmaids, 
Grammar,  Logic,  Rhetoric,  Geometry,  Arithmetic,  Astronomy, 
and  Music.  The  order  is  the  same  as  in  Varro,  and  the  number 
of  the  books  is  also  the  same,  the  only  difference  being  that 
whereas  Varro  devotes  two  further  books  to  Medicine  and  Archi¬ 
tecture,  Martianus  Capella  omits  these  and  uses  the  first  two 
books  to  introduce  his  allegory.  In  the  heavenly  Senate  of  the 
second  book  Homer,  Virgil,  and  Orpheus  are  described  as 
sounding  the  lute,  while  Archimedes  and  Plato  are  turning 
spheres  of  gold ;  Thales  is  in  a  watery  mist,  Heraclitus  aglow 
with  fire,  and  Democritus  wrapped  in  a  cloud  of  atoms,  while 
Pythagoras  threads  the  mazes  of  certain  celestial  numbers, 
Aristotle  is  in  constant  quest  of  Entelecheia,  and  Epicurus 
appears  amid  roses  and  violets2.  In  the  book  on  Rhetoric  the 


1  ‘Roma  quam  diu  viguit’  (vi  637)  suggests  a  date  later  than  Alaric’s  cap¬ 
ture  of  Rome  in  410;  ‘Carthago  nunc  felicitate  reverenda’  (vi  669)  a  date 
earlier  than  the  Vandal  invasion  of  Africa  in  429. 

2  ii  212  (Dill,  p.  415). 


XII.] 


MARTIANUS  CAPELLA. 


229 


examples  are  mainly  from  Cicero,  also  from  Terence  and  Virgil, 
and,  to  a  less  extent,  from  Ennius  and  Sallust.  But  the  author 
adds  fantastic  touches  of  his  own :  for  example,  the  kiss  with 
which  Rhetoric  salutes  Philologia  is  heard  throughout  the 
assembly,  nihil  enim  silens ,  ac  si  cuperet,  faciebat *.  The  Arts  in 
general,  and  Grammar  in  particular,  are  allowed  to  talk  undiluted 
and  unmitigated  text-book,  and  the  dramatic  form  of  the  work 
as  a  whole  is  often  lost  in  dull  and  dry  detail. 

The  work  is  probably  later  in  date1 2  than  the  disciplinarum 
libri  of  St  Augustine  which  belong  to  387.  In  the  earlier  Middle 
Ages  it  was  the  principal,  often  the  only,  text-book  used  in  schools, 
and  it  exercised  a  considerable  influence  on  education  and  on 
literary  taste.  The  Christian  rhetorician,  Securus  Memor  Felix, 
Professor  of  rhetoric  in  Rome  (who  took  part  in  the  Mavortian 
recension  of  Horace  in  527),  revised  the  text  with  the  aid  of  his 
pupil,  the  grammarian  Deuterius,  either  in  498  or  more  probably 
in  535 3 4-  ^  is  mentioned  as  early  as  Gregory  of  Tours  (d.  595)% 

is  often  quoted  by  John  of  Salisbury  (d.  1180),  and  is  repre¬ 
sented  by  many  mss,  including  one  at  Cambridge  of  the  eighth 
century,  and  others  once  belonging  to  the  monasteries  of  Bamberg 
and  Reichenau  at  the  beginning  and  the  end  respectively  of  the 
tenth5.  The  last  seven  books  (as  has  been  recently  observed) 

1  Liber  v,  prope  finem. 

2  Discussed  by  H.  Parker,  ‘The  Seven  Liberal  Arts,’  English  Historical 
Revinv,  1890,  pp.  417 — 461.  Mr  Parker,  while  rightly  opposing  the  late  date 
470,  seems  to  make  far  too  much  of  the  mention  of  ‘  Byzantium’  in  vi  657  as 
denoting  a  date  earlier  than  330. 

3  Jahn,  in  Sticks.  Berichte ,  1851,  p.  351.  Denk,  p.  209  (I  know  not  on 
what  authority),  assigns  Felix  to  Clermont  and  Deuterius  to  Pisa.  The  latter 
may  have  taught  at  Milan  (note  on  Ennodius,  lxiii  279  Migne).  Tillemont, 
Emp.  v  665,  connects  Felix  with  Clermont;  but  the  Hist.  Litt.  de  la  France , 
iii  173,  admits  that  his  native  place  is  unknown. 

4  Hist.  Franc,  x  ad  fin.,  si  te...Martianus  noster  septem  disciplinis  erudiit. 
It  was  expounded  by  Erigena  (d.  875),  and  is  mentioned  in  1149  by  Wilibald 
(Jaffe,  Mon.  Corbeiensia  i  275 — 9).  It  is  also  followed  in  a  poem  by  Theo- 
dulphus,  Bp  of  Orleans  under  Charlemagne,  entitled  De  septem  liberalibus 
artibns  in  quadam  pictura  depictis,  Migne,  cv  333,  and  Mon.  Hist.  Germ ., 
Poetae  Latini ,  i  544. 

5  Teuffel,  §  452  ;  Ebert,  i  482 — 5.  Cp.  Mullinger’s  Univ.  of  Cambridge , 
i  23 — 26,  100;  Saintsbury,  i  349 — 354,  and  Dill,  412  f. 


230 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


‘are  strictly  instructive,  and  sapless  as  the  rods  of  mediaeval 
schoolmasters.  The  allegory  of  the  first  two  books  is  pleasingly 
pedantic  and  the  whole  work  presents  the  sterile  union  of  fantasy 
and  pedantry,  so  dear  to  the  closing  years  of  pagan  scholarship, 
when  the  old  straw  was  thrashed,  re-tied  in  queer-shaped  bundles, 
and  then  thrashed  again.  The  process  produced  pabulum  for 
coming  generations’1.  But  its  influence  on  mediaeval  poetry  and 
art  must  not  be  forgotten.  That  influence  may  be  traced  in  the 
Anticlau dianus  of  Alanus  ab  Insulis  in  the  twelfth  century2,  in  the 
sculptured  representations  of  the  seven  liberal  arts  in  the  thir¬ 
teenth3,  and  in  Attavante’s  illuminations  of  the  ms  of  Martianus 
in  the  Library  of  St  Mark’s  at  Venice,  executed  for  Matthias 
Corvinus,  king  of  Hungary  ( c .  1460). 

The  year  450  marks  the  death  of  Theodosius  the  younger, 
the  emperor  of  the  East  who  condescended  to  be 

Recensions 

of  Soiinus,  a  copyist  and  was  celebrated  for  his  calligraphy. 

v  Even  while  he  was  presiding  over  the  races  of  the 

Circus,  he  passed  the  time  in  producing  specimens  of  beautiful 
handwriting.  The  record  of  his  having  copied  a  ms  of  Soiinus  is 
still  preserved  in  transcripts  of  that  copy  bearing  the  subscrip¬ 
tion  : — opera  et  studio  (or  studio  et  diligentia)  Theodosii  invictissimi 
principis.  In  the  same  year  we  have  a  recension  of  Vegetius  at 
Constantinople  by  one  Eutropius,  while,  in  the  subsequent  half- 
century,  we  have  recensions  of  Pomponius  Mela  and  of  abridge¬ 
ments  of  Valerius  Maximus,  produced  at  Ravenna  by  Rusticius 
Helpidius  Domnulus,  either  the  correspondent  of  Ennodius  and 
Cassiodorus,  or  that  of  Apollinaris  Sidonius,  who  will  next  engage 
our  attention4. 

In  the  latter  half  of  the  fifth  century  the  foremost  repre¬ 
sentative  of  Scholarship  in  Gaul  was  Gaius  Sollius 

Asidon?usS  Apollinaris  Sidonius  {c.  431 — c.  482-4).  He  was 
born  at  Lyons,  where  he  was  educated  in  poetry, 

1  H.  O.  Taylor,  The  Classical  Heritage  of  the  Middle  Ages  (1901),  p.  51. 

2  Migne,  ccx. 

3  Male,  Part  religieux  du  xiiie  siecle ,  pp.  102 — 12 1  (1898).  The  earliest 
sculptured  representations  of  the  liberal  arts  are  found  on  the  facades  of 
Chartres  (1145  a.d.)  and  Laon  (Viollet  le  Due,  Diet,  de  PArch .,  s.v.  Arts 
Liberaux). 

4  Jahn,  in  Sachs.  Berichte,  1851,  342 — 7. 


XII.]  RECENSIONS  OF  SOLINUS,  VEGETIUS,  ETC. 


231 


rhetoric  and  philosophy.  His  father  and  grandfather  were 
Christians,  and  held  high  office  in  the  State.  His  wife’s  father, 
Avitus,  became  emperor  of  Rome  in  455,  and  caused  a  statue 
of  Sidonius  to  be  placed  among  those  of  literary  celebrities  in 
the  library  of  Trajan  ( Carm .  vii).  Similarly,  in  recognition  of 
his  panegyrics,  he  was  honoured  with  a  laurelled  bust  by  Majorian 
(461),  and  with  a  second  statue  by  Anthemius  (467),  who  made 
him  praefect  of  Rome.  From  about  472  to  his  death,  about  484, 
he  was  bishop  of  the  urbs  Aruerna ,  now  known  as  Clermont 
Ferrand.  He  was  a  layman  of  high  estate  when  he  was  unani¬ 
mously  elected  bishop ;  in  times  of  trouble  due  to  the  aggressions 
of  the  Visigoths  under  Euric,  who  annexed  Auvergne  and  im¬ 
prisoned  its  bishop  in  475,  he  discharged  the  duties  of  his  office 
in  an  exemplary  manner ;  and,  when  he  lay  a  dying  in  his  cathedral 
church,  a  vast  crowd  of  men,  women  and  children  was  heard 
lamenting  and  exclaiming  :  cur  nos  deseris,  pastor  bone ,  vel  cui  nos 
quasi  orphanos  derelinquis1  ?  He  survives  in  his  poems  and  his 
letters.  His  poems  are  written  in  hexameters,  elegiacs  and  hen- 
decasyllables,  a  favourite  metre  in  this  age.  One  of  these  last 
{Carm.  ix)  shows  a  wide,  though  possibly  superficial,  familiarity 
with  classical  literature.  In  his  hexameter  poems  the  mythological 
element  is  predominant.  On  becoming  a  bishop  he  professed  to 
give  up  writing  verses2 3,  but  he  not  unfrequently  relapsed  into  that 
form  of  amusement.  He  mainly  imitates  Virgil  and  Horace, 
Statius  and  Claudian  '1,  and  he  was  himself  imitated  by  learned  poets 
in  the  Middle  Ages,  but  in  the  dawn  of  the  Renaissance  he  was 
deemed  a  difficult  writer  by  Petrarch.  His  letters  are  modelled 
on  those  of  the  younger  Pliny,  resembling  in  this  respect  the 
letters  of  Symmachus,  but  far  excelling  them  in  vivid  colouring 
and  varied  interest.  Like  Pliny’s,  they  include  elaborate  descrip¬ 
tions  of  several  country-houses  (ii  2  and  9).  Above  all,  they 
supply  us  with  many  graphic  details  as  to  the  state  of  society 
and  of  learning  in  Gaul,  and  as  to  the  literary  tastes  of  the  writer 
himself,  which  are  also  suggested  in  his  poems.  He  quotes  from 

1  Greg.  Tur.  Hist.  Franc,  ii  23. 

2  Ep.  ix  12,  2;  16,  3,  11.  45—64. 

3  Cp.  Geisler,  Loci  similes  auctorum  Sidonio  anteriorum  in  Luetjohann’s 
ed.,  pp.  351  f,  384—416. 


232 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Virgil  and  Horace,  from  Cicero  and  Tacitus ;  he  is  an  admirer 
of  Sallust  ( Carm .  ii  190,  xxiii  152);  with  his  son  he  reads 
Menander  and  Terence  ( Ep .  iv  12) ;  in  his  youth  he  has  studied 
the  Categories  of  Aristotle  (iv  1) ;  one  of  his  friends  is  devoted  to 
the  study  of  Plato  (iv  11);  but  the  only  dialogue  named  by  him¬ 
self  is  the  Phaedo,  and  that  in  the  Latin  translation  of  Apuleius 
(ii  9;  Carm.  ii  178).  He  tells  us  of  the  Latin  authors  in  the 
library  of  a  noble  friend  near  Nimes,  which  included  Varro  and 
Horace,  as  well  as  Augustine  and  Prudentius  and  a  Latin  transla¬ 
tion  of  Origen  (ii  9,  4)1.  His  friend  Lampridius  of  Bordeaux 
(whom  he  has  special  reasons  for  humouring)  is  described  as 
declaiming  with  equal  facility  in  Greek  and  in  Latin  (ix  13); 
another  friend,  Consentius  of  Narbonne,  composes  in  Greek  as 
well  as  Latin  verse  (ix  15,  1.  21),  while  Magnus,  the  father  of 
Consentius,  is  flatteringly  compared  with  Homer  and  Herodotus2, 
with  Sophocles,  Euripides  and  Menander,  and  with  a  series  of 
Latin  authors  from  Plautus  to  Martial  ( Carm .  xxiii).  When  he 
hears  of  a  monk,  who  has  passed  through  the  town,  carrying  off 
to  Britain,  the  native  land  of  Faustus  (the  semi-pelagian  bishop  of 
Riez  in  Provence),  a  mysterious  ms  written  by  Faustus  himself,  he 
drives  after  him  with  all  speed  and  does  not  rest  until  he  has  had 
the  ms  copied  by  his  secretaries  at  his  dictation  (ix  9,  16).  A  treatise, 
in  which  Faustus  maintained  the  corporeal  nature  of  the  soul,  was 
answered  by  Mamertus  Claudianus,  who  translates  large  portions 
of  the  dialogues  of  Plato,  besides  referring  to  Thales,  Pythagoras, 
Zeno,  Epicurus,  Porphyry  and  other  philosophers3.  This  reply 
he  dedicated  to  Sidonius,  who  exhausts  the  vocabulary  of  literary 
allusion  in  acknowledging  the  compliment,  but  never  approaches 
the  point  at  issue  between  his  friends  (iv  3).  It  is  Sidonius  who 
preserves  for  us  the  familiar  example  of  a  ‘  recurrent  ’  verse,  which 
is  the  same  whether  read  backwards  or  forwards,  Roma  tibi  subito 
motibus  ibit  amor  (ix  14,  4).  He  sends  to  a  friend  the  ‘logistoric’ 
works  of  Varro,  and  the  chronology  of  Eusebius  (viii  6,  18).  He 

1  Other  libraries  are  mentioned  in  viii  4  and  11  §  2,  Carm.  xxiv  92,  and  a 
bybliopola  in  Ep.  v  15. 

2  C.  xxiii  134,  primos  vix  poterant  locos  tueri  |  torrens  Herodotus,  tonans 
Homerus. 

3  ed.  Engelbrecht,  1885. 


XII.] 


APOLLINARIS  SIDONIUS. 


233 


regrets  that  literature  is  held  in  esteem  by  few,  pauci  studia  nunc 
honor  ant  (v  10,  4);  but  he  rejoices  that  the  literary  spirit,  ‘now 
dying  out’,  has  found  a  refuge  in  the  noble  heart  of  a  friend 
(iv  17).  He  laments  the  inroad  of  barbarisms  into  the  classical 
idioms  of  the  Latin  language1.  In  contrast  with  Latin,  he  regards 
Celtic  and  German  with  contempt  (iii  2  ;  v  5,  1).  He  is  not 
attracted  even  by  the  best  of  his  German  neighbours  (iv  1;  vii  14). 
His  Muse  falters  in  the  presence  of  barbarous  Burgundians ; 
‘  how  ’,  he  asks,  ‘  can  I  write  six-feet  hexameters  when  surrounded 
by  seven-feet  barbarians?’  ( Carm .  xii).  We  cannot  part  with 
Sidonius  better  than  in  the  terms  of  grateful  appreciation  recently 
applied  to  himself  and  his  literary  contemporaries.  He  fully 
deserves  to  be  called  the  foremost  of  those  who  ‘  in  a  period  of 
political  convulsion  and  literary  decadence,  softened  the  impact 
of  barbarism,  and  kept  open  for  coming  ages  the  access  to  the 
distant  sources  of  our  intellectual  life’2. 

The  interest  in  Latin  literature  survived  longest  in  Gaul,  where 
schools  of  learning  were  flourishing  as  early  as  the  Schoois  Qf 
first  century  at  Autun,  Lyons,  Toulouse,  Nimes,  learning  in 
Vienne,  Narbonne  and  Marseilles ;  and  from  the  Gaul 
third  century  onwards,  at  Trier,  Poitiers,  Besangon  and  Bordeaux3. 
In  the  schools  of  Gaul  three  tendencies  may  be  traced4:  (1)  that 

1  ii  10,  1,  tantum  increbruit  multitude*  desidiosorum,  ut,  nisi  vel  paucissimi 
quique  meram  Latiaris  linguae  proprietatem  de  trivialium  barbarismorum  robi- 
gine  vindicaveritis,  earn  brevi  abolitam  defleamus  interemptamque. 

2  Dill’s  Roman  Society ,  p.  451.  On  Sidonius,  cp.  Luetjohann’s  ed.  (in 
Mon.  Germ.  Hist.) ;  also  the  Benedictine  Histoire  Litteraire  de  France ,  vol.  ii ; 
Teuffel,  §§  466,  1  and  467;  Ebert,  i2  419  f;  the  works  of  Germain  (1844), 
Kaufmann  (1864-5),  and  Chaix  (1866),  and  Mullinger’s  Schools  of  Charles  the 
Great  (1877),  pp.  16 — 20;  Denk’s  Gallo- Frankisches  Unterrichts -  und Bildungs- 
wesen  (1892),  pp.  141 — 153,  160 — 3;  Saintsbury,  i  383 — 9;  and  Dill,  187 — 
223,  410  f,  434 — 451.  Cp.  Hodgkin’s  Italy  and  her  Invaders ,  ii  298 — 374. 

3  Denk,  82 — 93.  The  celebrated  school  at  Augustodunum  {Autun)  is 
noticed  by  Tacitus,  Ann.  iii  43  (21  a.d.)  ;  its  decline  began  in  270;  and,  after 
its  destruction  by  the  barbarous  Bagaudae,  its  restoration  was  warmly  urged  in 
297  by  the  rhetorician  Eumenius,  who  gives  an  interesting  account  of  its  posi¬ 
tion  in  the  midst  of  the  finest  buildings  of  the  city,  with  its  class-rooms  for  the 
teaching  of  Grammar,  Rhetoric  and  Philosophy,  its  colonnades  adorned  with 
illustrations  of  History  and  Geography,  and  its  baths,  gymnasium  and  palaestra 
(Or.  iv  in  Panegyrici  Latini ,  ed.  Bahrens). 

4  J.  E.  B.  Mayor,  Latin  Heptateuch ,  1889,  p.  liv  f. 


234 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


of  Sidonius,  whose  relations  to  the  Classics  have  been  already 
reviewed;  of  Ennodius  (d.  521),  who  was  born  in  Gaul,  and  in 
his  earlier  years  regarded  the  pursuits  of  literature  as  the  cure  for 
the  troubles  of  his  time1,  but,  after  becoming  bishop  of  Pavia, 
detested  the  very  name  of  ‘liberal  studies2’;  and  of  Venantius 
Fortunatus  ( c .  535 — 600),  an  Italian  by  birth,  who  became  pres¬ 
byter  of  Poitiers  and  wrote  an  epic  on  St  Martin  of  Tours, 
modelled  on  Virgil  and  Claudian.  This  tendency  may  be  de¬ 
scribed  as  ‘essentially  heathen,  with  a  veneer  of  churchmanship’. 
(2)  The  second  tendency  is  that  of  men  like  Paulinus  of  Nola, 
which,  while  introducing  into  the  Church  ‘a  new  Pantheon’  of 
locally  important  saints  (such  as  Felix  of  Nola),  ‘jealously  guards 
its  pupils  from  the  contagion  of  the  gentile  Classics’.  (3)  The 
third  tendency  is  ‘that  of  the  wiser,  more  truly  catholic  teachers’, 
such  as  Hilary  of  Poitiers  (d.  367),  who,  as  noticed  by  Jerome 
{Ep.  83),  is  an  imitator  of  Quintilian ;  Sulpicius  Severus  (d.  425), 
who,  in  his  Chronica ,  imitates  Sallust,  Tacitus  and  Velleius,  and, 
in  his  works  on  St  Martin  of  Tours,  makes  Cicero  his  model,  and 
has  reminiscences  of  Virgil;  Claudius  Marius  Victor  (d.  c.  425 — 
450),  who  ascribes  all  the  disasters  of  his  time  to  the  rhetorical 
education  of  the  day  with  its  abandonment  of  Paul  and  Solomon 
for  Terence,  Virgil,  Horace  and  Ovid3;  Hilary  of  Arles  (d.  c.  450), 
who  succeeded  Honoratus  as  bishop  of  Arles  and  wrote,  his  life, 
and  found  his  chief  delight  in  expounding  difficult  passages  to  his 
pupils4;  Alcimus  Avitus,  bishop  of  Vienne  (d.  c.  525),  who  imitates 
Virgil,  Horace,  Juvencus,  Claudian,  Sedulius  and  Sidonius ;  and 
lastly  Cyprianus,  bishop  of  Toulon  (c.  475 — 550),  the  author  of  a 
rendering  of  the  Heptateuch  in  Latin  verse.  These  last,  ‘while 
borrowing  from  the  Roman  models  their  language,  their  taste  and 
their  examples  of  primitive  virtue,  endeavour  to  create  a  reformed 
literature,  not  ashamed  to  draw  its  inspiration  and  topics  from 
Hebrew  and  Christian  tradition’5.  In  the  same  spirit  Ambrose 
(d.  397),  who  was  the  son  of  a  Praefectus  Galliarum  and  was 

1  Euchaj'ist.  de  vita  sua,  vi  394.  2  Ep.  ix  1,  ed.  1892. 

3  Denk,  p.  224.  His  own  models  include  Virgil,  and  also  Lucretius  and 

Ovid. 

4  Denk,  p.  191  (quoting  Hist.  Lift,  iii  23). 

5  J.  E.  B.  Mayor,  /.  c. 


XII.]  THE  SCHOOLS  OF  GAUL.  GRAMMARIANS  ETC.  235 


probably  born  at  Trier,  but  completed  his  education  at  Rome, 
borrows  the  substance  of  large  parts  of  his  Hexa'emeron  from 
Basil,  and  is  specially  fond  of  quoting  Virgil ;  while  his  model  in 
the  De  Officiis  Ministrorum  is  obviously  the  De  Officiis  of  Cicero. 

To  the  age  of  Sidonius  may  be  ascribed  two  treatises  by  a 
Gallic  Grammarian  bearing  the  same  name  as  (and 

...  x  Grammarians 

possibly  identical  with)  his  poetical  friend,  Con-  and  Commen- 
sentius1.  To  the  same  age,  but  to  other  lands,  tators 
may  be  assigned  certain  commentaries  on  the  Grammar  of  Dona- 
tus,  one  of  which  (that  of  the  Mauretanian  Pompeius)  was  popular 
in  the  Middle  Ages ;  also  a  glossary,  with  quotations  from  Plautus 
and  Lucilius,  by  Luctatius  Placidus,  probably  a  native  of  Africa ; 
and  expositions  of  the  Eclogues  and  Georgies  of  Virgil  by  Philar- 
gyrius  and  others2.  About  ten  years  after  the  death  of  Sidonius 
we  find  the  consul  of  494,  Turcius  Rufius  Apronianus  Asterius, 
who  was  the  first  to  publish  the  Carmen  Pasckale  of  the  Christian 
poet  Sedulius,  revising  a  text  of  Virgil  in  Rome,  as  is  proved  by  a 
‘subscription’  in  the  Medicean  ms  at  the  end  of  the  Eclogues 3. 

Sidonius  describes  one  of  his  friends  as  a  happy  Tityrus  who 
had  recovered  the  lands  which  he  had  lost  to  the  barbarians4. 
Their  ever-threatening  incursions  might  well  have  tempted  him 
in  his  latter  days  to  say  with  Virgil : — impius  haec  tam  culta 
novalia  miles  habebit  ?  barbarus  has  segetes  ?  But  the  ‘  barbarians  ’ 
of  his  own  day  were  soon  to  be  superseded  by  victorious  invaders, 
who  were  ultimately  to  change  the  name  of  Gaul  into  that  of 
France.  Only  a  few  years  after  his  death,  the  Franks  under 
Clovis  defeated  Syagrius  and  his  Belgians  at  Soissons  (486) ;  ten 
years  later  the  defeat  of  the  Alemanni5  was  immediately  followed 
by  the  baptism  of  Clovis  (496) ;  and  the  subsequent  victories 
over  the  Armoricans,  Burgundians  (500)  and  Visigoths  (507) 
led  to  the  practical  termination  of  the  Roman  power  and  the 
establishment  of  the  Merovingian  dynasty  in  Gaul,  a  change 

1  De  nomine  et  verbo,  and  De  barbarismis  et  metaplasmis  (Keil,  Gr.  Lat. 
v  2,  338). 

2  Teuffel,  §  472. 

3  Jahn,  in  Sachs.  Berichte ,  1851,  p.  348  f;  Teuffel,  §  231.  9;  facsimile  in 
Ribbeck’s  Virgil,  iv  206. 

4  Ep.  viii  9,  5  1.  12. 

5  Assigned  to  492  in  Bury’s  Later  Roman  Empire,  i  284. 


236 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP.  XII. 


formally  ratified  by  Justinian  in  536.  Meanwhile  Odoacer,  who 
had  put  an  end  to  the  Western  Empire  in  476,  was  himself 
superseded  in  493  by  Theodoric,  king  of  the  Ostrogoths,  who 
ruled  over  Italy  till  his  death  in  526.  In  the  years  covered 
by  the  reign  of  Theodoric,  which  may  be  regarded  as  a  time 
of  transition  between  the  Roman  Age  and  the  Middle  Ages, 
Scholarship  is  represented  by  the  great  names  of  Boethius  and 
Cassiodorus  in  the  West,  and  Priscian  in  the  East.  These  names 
are  reserved  for  the  following  chapter. 


hcc  cjuifcjitxm  accjuXL fxxrnfXtrib; 

i  It llcriptvr  eyrxrcjuoCxnf  cerrv 

yu xcxorcr  {htcur  ’ 

ficn&Ho  .vui  MtcopLxii*  Awti’ 

TiTtum  ♦  \ie  uiCe^ 

xpuDiPiun  xsuzvBe  cohjb 
-vicroixxxMiic,  tic  ecneMD.v 
'BP^co  x yocryui  $ycoc*j?s-cki$ 

JlI-vih- fxf£-  in#  \m 

^^ecixiiTun^  u nc-,ajw hi ucn 
— 'no  biltf  cbule-  romxnx  cxiuAtn-X,- 
p.vvrm?  uecurto  cjuiu rx> fxyfhv 

From  Codex  Laurentianus  lxiii  19  (Cent,  x)  of  Livy  viii  ult. 
(Chatelain’s  Paleographie  des  Classiques  Latins ,  pi.  cx. )  See  p.  215  f. 


CHAPTER  XIII. 


LATIN  SCHOLARSHIP  FROM  5OO  TO  53O  A.D. 

In  the  first  quarter  of  the  sixth  century,  which  is  the  close  of 
the  Roman  period  and  the  prelude  of  the  Middle 

.  .  Boethius 

Ages  in  the  West,  no  name  is  more  eminent  in 
Latin  literature  than  that  of  Anicius  Manlius  Severinus  Boethius 
(c.  480 — 524).  He  was  the  head  of  the  noble  Anician  house, 
which  had  been  famous  for  six  centuries ;  of  his  four  names,  the 
second  recalled  a  hero  of  the  Roman  Republic,  and  the  third  a 
saintly  hermit  of  Noricum1 ;  while  his  wife  was  the  daughter  of  the 
senator  Symmachus,  the  great-grandson  of  the  orator  of  that 
name  (p.  214).  A  student  from  his  early  years  and  renowned  for 
the  wide  range  of  his  learning,  which  included  an  intimate 
knowledge  of  Greek,  he  formed  the  ambitious  resolve  of  rendering 
and  expounding  in  Latin  the  whole  of  Plato  and  Aristotle,  with  a 
view  to  proving  their  substantial  agreement  with  one  another2. 
Though  only  a  part  of  this  vast  scheme  was  completed,  his  success 
in  that  part  was  immediately  recognised.  One  of  his  correspon¬ 
dents,  Ennodius,  bishop  of  Pavia,  assured  him  that  ‘  in  his  hands 
the  torch  of  ancient  learning  shone  with  redoubled  flame’  ( Ep .  vii 
13);  while  Cassiodorus,  writing  about  507  a.d.,  as  the  secretary  of 
Theodoric,  paid  homage  to  his  high  services  as  an  interpreter  of 
the  science  and  philosophy  of  Greece  : — 1  through  him  Pythagoras 
the  musician,  Ptolemy  the  astronomer,  Nicomachus  the  arithme¬ 
tician,  Euclid  the  geometer,  Plato  the  theologian,  Aristotle  the 
logician,  Archimedes  the  mechanician,  had  learned  to  speak  the 

1  Bury,  Later  Roman  Empire,  i  285  f. 

2  Boethius  on  Aristotle,  De  Interpr .  ii  2,  3  p.  79  Meiser  (=Migne,  lxiv 

433)* 


238 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


V. 


[CHAP. 


Roman  language’1.  So  varied  were  his  accomplishments  that  he 
was  requested  by  Theodoric  to  construct  a  sundial  and  a  water- 
clock  for  the  king  of  the  Burgundians  ( Var.  i  45),  to  nominate  a 
musician  for  the  court  of  Clovis  (ii  40),  and  to  detect  a  fraud  in 
the  currency  of  the  realm  (i  10).  When  he  received  these  requests 
he  already  bore  the  designation  of  illustris  and  patricius.  He 
became  sole  consul  in  510,  and,  even  in  the  year  of  his  consul¬ 
ship,  he  was  inspired  by  patriotic  motives  to  continue  to  instruct 
his  fellow-countrymen  in  the  wisdom  of  Greece2.  He  reached 
the  height  of  his  fame  in  522,  when  the  consulship  was  held  by 
his  two  sons,  and  their  father  pronounced  in  the  Senate  a  panegyric 
on  Theodoric.  Not  long  afterwards,  he  and  his  father-in-law, 
Symmachus,  were  charged  with  the  design  of  liberating  Rome 
from  the  barbarian  yoke.  The  grounds  of  the  charge  are 
obscure3;  he  was  condemned  by  the  Senate  unheard;  and  the 
student  of  philosophy,  who  had  unfortunately  been  prompted  by 
Plato  to  take  part  in  the  affairs  of  the  State,  found  himself  com¬ 
pelled  to  bid  farewell  to  the  scene  of  his  studies,  leaving  his 
library,  with  its  walls  adorned  with  ivory  and  glass4,  for  the  gloom 
of  a  prison  between  Pavia  and  Milan,  where,  after  some  delay,  he 
was  put  to  a  cruel  death  in  524.  His  fate  was  shared  in  the 
following  year  by  Symmachus ;  and,  a  year  later,  the  dying  hours 
of  Theodoric  are  said  to  have  been  troubled  with  remorse  for 
these  deeds  of  wrong  (526).  In  722  a  tomb  was  erected  in  his 
memory  by  Luitprand,  king  of  the  Lombards,  in  the  same  cen¬ 
tury  he  was  venerated  as  a  ‘martyr5,  and  in  1884  canonised  as  a 
‘  saint  \ 

Boethius  holds  an  intermediate  position  between  the  ancient 
world  and  the  Middle  Ages.  He  was  the  last  of  the  learned 
Romans  who  understood  the  language  and  studied  the  literature 

1  Variae ,  i  45  (Milman,  Hist.  Lat.  Christ,  i  413,  ed.  1867). 

2  Comm,  in  Ar.  Categ.  ii  (Migne,  lxiv  201),  Etsi  nos  curae  officii  con- 
sularis  impediunt  quominus  in  his  studiis  omne  otium  plenamque  operam 
consumamus,  pertinere  tamenvidetur  hoc  ad  aliquam  reipublicae  curam,...cives 
instruere  etc. 

3  His  own  account  of  the  charge  is  given  in  Phil.  Cons,  i  4 prose  66,  senatum 
dicimur  salvum  esse  voluisse  etc.  The  whole  question  is  discussed  in  Hodgkin’s 
Italy  and  her  Invaders ,  III  iv  c.  12. 

4  Phil.  Cons,  i  5  pr.  20,  bybliothecae  comptos  ebore  ac  vitro  parietes. 


XIII.] 


BOETHIUS. 


I 


239 


of  Greece ;  and  he  was  the  first  to  interpret  to  the  Middle  Ages 
the  logical  treatises  of  Aristotle.  His  philosophical  works 1  include 
a  commentary  on  Porphyry’s  Introduction  to  the  Categories  as 
translated  by  Victorinus ;  a  translation  of  that  Introduction  by 
Boethius  himself,  with  a  still  more  extensive  commentary ;  a 
translation  of  the  Categories,  with  a  commentary  in  four  books 
(510A.D.);  a  translation  of  the  De  Interpretation ,  with  a  com¬ 
mentary  in  two,  and  another  in  six  (507-9  a.d.);  renderings  of 
the  first  and  second  Analytics ,  the  Sophistici  Elenchi  and  the 
Topics  of  Aristotle ;  fragments  of  a  commentary  on  the  Topics  of 
Cicero,  with  several  original  works  on  division,  definition,  and  on 
various  kinds  of  syllogisms.  We  also  possess  his  treatise  on 
Arithmetic  (which  is  highly  esteemed),  on  Geometry  (a  Latin 
transcript  from  parts  of  Euclid),  and  on  Music  (which  is  held  to 
have  even  retarded  the  scientific  development  of  the  art  by  re¬ 
verting  to  the  Pythagorean  scale2). 

In  the  history  of  Scholarship  the  main  importance  of  Boethius 
lies  in  the  fact  that  his  philosophical  works  on  Aristotle  gave  the 
first  impulse  to  a  problem  which  continued  to  exercise  the  keenest 
intellects  among  the  schoolmen  down  to  the  end  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  The  first  signal  for  the  long-continued  battle  between  the 
Nominalists  and  the  Realists  was  given  by  Boethius.  Porphyry, 
in  his  ‘  Introduction  to  the  Categories  ’,  had  propounded  three 
questions  :  (1)  ‘  Do  genera  and  species  subsist’,  i.e.  really  exist,  ‘or 
do  they  consist  in  the  simple  conception  of  the  subject?’  (2)  ‘If 
they  subsist,  are  they  corporeal  or  incorporeal?’  (3)  In  either 
case,  ‘are  they  separate  from  sensible  objects,  or  do  they  reside 
in  these  objects,  forming  something  coexistent  with  them?’3. 
These  questions  Porphyry  had  set  aside  as  requiring  deeper 
investigation.  Boethius  in  his  first  commentary  on  Porphyry,  in 
which  he  had  accepted  the  translation  by  Victorinus,  stated  that 
it  was  impossible  to  doubt  the  real  existence  of  genera  and 

1  Migne,  lxiv  1 — 1215. 

2  Macfarren  in  Enc.  Brit,  quoted  by  Hodgkin,  iii  529. 

3  In  Porph.  Comment,  i  82  Migne  (de  generibus  et  speciebus),  sive  subsistant, 
sive  in  solis  nudis  intellectibus  posita  sint,  sive  subsistentia  corporalia  sint  an 
incorporalia,  et  utrum  separata  a  sensibilibus  an  in  sensibilibus  posita.  Cp. 
Haureau,  Histoire  de  la  Philosophic  Scolastique ,  i  47 — 52,  wjth  H.  F.  Stewart’s 
Boethius ,  c.  vii,  esp.  p.  248  f. 


240 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


species *;  but,  towards  the  close  of  the  first  book  of  his  second 
commentary,  founded  on  his  own  translation  of  Porphyry,  we  find 
him  weighing  and  comparing  the  opinions  of  Plato  and  Aristotle: — 
‘according  to  Plato,  genera  and  species  are  not  merely  conceptions, 
in  so  far  as  they  are  universals ;  they  are  real  things  existing  apart 
from  bodies ;  according  to  Aristotle,  they  are  conceived  as  in¬ 
corporeal,  in  so  far  as  they  are  universals,  but  they  have  no  real 
existence  apart  from  the  sensible  world’2.  He  now  inclines 
towards  the  opinion  of  Aristotle,  whereas  formerly  he  had  pre¬ 
ferred  that  of  Plato;  but,  like  Porphyry  himself,  he  leaves  the 
question  undetermined,  deeming  it  unbecoming  to  decide  be¬ 
tween  Plato  and  Aristotle.  A  rhymer  of  the  twelfth  century, 
Godefroi  de  Saint  Victor,  has  happily  described  Boethius  as 
remaining  silent  and  undecided  in  this  conflict  of  opinions : — 

‘Assidet  Boethius,  stupens  de  hac  lite, 

Audiens  quid  hie  et  hie  asserat  perite, 

Et  quid  cui  faveat  non  discernit  rite, 

Nee  praesumit  solvere  litem  definite’3. 

But  this  vacillating  judgment  could  not  satisfy  the  keen  intellects 
of  the  schoolmen,  and  we  find  the  Aristotelian  tradition  resolutely 
maintained  in  the  eighth  century  by  Rabanus  Maurus,  and  as 
resolutely  opposed  in  the  ninth  by  John  Scotus  Erigena,  the 
champion  of  Plato  and  Realism,  and  the  opponent  of  the  vaguely 
Aristotelian  teaching  of  Boethius4.  The  conflict  continued  in 
various  forms  (in  discussions  whether  universals  are  realia  ante 
rem ,  or  nomina  post  rem ,  or  realia  in  re)  down  to  the  end  of  the 
Middle  Ages. 

The  interests  of  Boethius  were  primarily  philosophical  and 
secondarily  theological ;  and  his  study  of  dialectic  was  combined 
with  some  attention  to  abstruse  points  of  theoretical  theology. 
The  mss  credit  him  with  five  brief  theological  treatises5,  and  the 
question  whether  they  can  be  ascribed  to  the  same  authorship  as 
the  Philosophiae  Consolatio  has  long  been  debated.  A  fragment 

1  Migne,  lxiv  19  c,  si  rerum  veritatem  atque  integritatem  perpendas,  non 
est  dubium  quin  verae  (vere?)  sint.  Cp.  F.  D.  Maurice,  Mediaeval  Philosophy , 
p.  11. 

2  Migne,  lxiv  86  a;  Stewart,  p.  253. 

3  Fons  Philosophiae  (Haureau,  i  120). 

4  Haureau,  i  144,  173. 


5  Migne,  lxiv  1247 — 1412. 


XIII.] 


BOETHIUS. 


241 


of  Cassiodorus  discovered  in  1877  supports  the  genuineness  of 
four  of  the  five,  including  the  De  Trinitate  addressed  to  his 
father-in-law  Symmachus.  All  the  four  treatises  appear  to  belong 
to  his  early  life,  and  his  interest  in  his  theme  is  mainly  dialectical1. 
While  his  translation  of  the  Categories  did  not  supersede  ‘  St 
Augustine’s’  until  the  end  of  the  tenth  century2,  and  his  renderings 
of  the  Analytics ,  Topics  and  Sophistici  Elenchi  were  apparently 
unknown  until  the  twelfth3,  his  theological  treatises  were  familiar 
to  Alcuin  (734 — 804)  and  to  Hincmar,  bishop  of  Rheims  (850). 
The  fact  that  they  were  expounded  by  Gilbert  de  la  Porree,  bishop 
of  Poitiers  from  1141,  is  another  link  connecting  Boethius  with 
the  Middle  Ages. 

The  crowning  work  of  his  life,  the  Philosophiae  Consolatio , 
was  composed  in  prison  not  long  before  his  death.  It  is  in  the 
form  of  a  dialogue,  and  includes  39  short  poems  in  13  different 
metres,  intermingled  with  prose  after  the  Menippean  manner, 
which  had  been  applied  to  lighter  themes  by  Varro,  by  Seneca 
and  Petronius,  and  by  Martianus  Capella,  but  is  here  raised  to  a 
far  higher  dignity.  The  work  begins  with  an  elegiac  poem 
inspired  by  the  Muses  who  are  described  as  actually  present  in 
the  prisoner’s  cell,  when  the  queenly  form  of  Philosophia  appears, 
and,  bidding  them  depart,  herself  consoles  the  prisoner’s  sorrows. 
In  the  phraseology  of  the  poetical  passages  Seneca  is  the  author 
mainly  imitated,  but  there  are  some  reminiscences  of  Virgil  and 
Horace,  Ovid  and  Juvenal4.  One  of  the  poems  (iii  11)  ends  with 
the  Platonic  doctrine  of  reminiscence ;  another  (iii  9)  is  entirely 
inspired  by  Plato’s  Timaeus ,  which  is  repeatedly  quoted  in  the 
prose  passages,  with  obvious  echoes  of  the  Gorgias  (iv  2  and  4). 
There  are  also  indications  of  indebtedness  to  the  lost  Protrepticus 
of  Aristotle5;  and  direct  quotations  from  Aristotle’s  Physics  and 
De  Caelo,  and  from  the  De  Divinatione  and  the  Somnium 
Scipionis  of  Cicero.  As  an  eclectic  philosopher,  the  author  also 
borrows  from  the  Stoics.  Throughout  the  work  there  is  no 

1  H.  Usener  on  the  Anecdoton  Holderi  (Pauly- Wissowa,  s.v.  Boethius , 
p.  600).  Cp.  Hodgkin’s  Cassiodorus ,  pp.  73 — 84,  and  Stewart,  pp.  11 — 13, 
108 — 159. 

2  Haureau,  i  97.  3  Prantl,  Gesch.  der  Logik ,  ii  4. 

4  Pp.  228 — 231  ed.  Peiper.  5  Bywater  in  Journ.  Phil,  ii  59. 

1 6 


s. 


242 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


evidence  of  distinctively  Christian  belief,  but  there  are  a  few 
phrases  of  apparently  Christian  origin.  Neo-platonism  and 
Christianity  are  respectively  implied  in  the  mention  of  human 
destiny  as  influenced  either  daetnonum  varia  sollertia ,  or  angelica 
virtute  (iv  6  pr.  51).  The  utterances  of  Philosophia  are  described 
as  veri  praevia  luminis  (iv  1);  the  world  is  under  the  beneficent 
rule  of  a  rerum  bonus  rector  (ib.) ;  the  writer  regards  heaven  as  his 
1  home’,  his  do?nus  (ib.)  and  his  patria  (ib.  and  v  1),  and  as  the 
realm  where  the  sceptre  is  held  by  the  dominus  regum  and  all 
tyrants  are  banished.  Biblical  reminiscences  are  suggested  by 
passages  such  as  the  description  of  the  summum  bonum,  quod 
regit  cuncta  fortiter ,  suaviterque  disponit  (iii  pr.  1 2  and  Wisdom  viii 
1),  by  vasa  vilia  et  vasa  pretiosa  (iv  pr.  1)  and  by  hue  omnes 
pariter  venite  (iii  m.  10).  But  the  absence  of  all  reference  to  the 
consolations  of  religion  is  much  more  remarkable  than  the  presence 
of  a  few  phrases  such  as  these.  The  author’s  belief  in  prayer  and 
in  providence  implies  that  his  mind  was  tinged  by  Christian 
influence,  and  is  probably  due  to  a  Christian  education.  In 
fact  he  could  hardly  have  held  public  office  in  this  age  without 
having  been  a  Christian,  at  least  by  profession.  He  does  not 
oppose  any  Christian  doctrine,  but  his  attitude  is  that  of  a  Theist 
and  not  that  of  a  Christian.  He  supplied  the  Middle  Ages  with 
an  eclectic  manual  of  moral  teaching  severed  from  dogma  and 
endued  with  all  the  charm  of  exquisite  verse  blended  with  lucid 
prose ;  and,  as  the  latest  luminary  of  the  ancient  world,  he  remained 
long  in  view,  while  the  sources  of  the  light  which  he  reflected 
were  forgotten.  The  masterpiece  which  was  his  last  legacy  to 
posterity  was  repeatedly  translated,  expounded  and  imitated  in 
the  Middle  Ages,  and  these  translations  were  among  the  earliest 
literary  products  of  the  vernacular  languages  of  Europe, — English, 
French,  German*  Italian  and  Spanish,  among  the  translators 
being  names  of  no  less  note  than  king  Alfred,  Chaucer  and 
Queen  Elizabeth.  It  was  also  translated  into  Greek  by  Maximus 
Planudes  (d.  1310).  The  emperor  Otho  III,  who  died  in  1002,  a 
hundred  years  after  Alfred,  placed  in  his  library  a  bust  of 
Boethius,  which  was  celebrated  by  the  best  Latin  poet  of  the  age, 
the  future  pope  Silvester  II  \  Three  centuries  later,  he  is  quoted 

1  Peiper’s  Boethius ,  p.  40. 


XIII.] 


BOETHIUS. 


243 


more  than  20  times  in  the  Conviio  and  elsewhere  by  Dante1, 
whose  best-known  lines,  ATessun  maggior  dolore  Che  ricordarsi  del 
tempo  felice  Nella  miseria  ( Inf.  v  121),  are  a  reminiscence  of 
Boethius  (11  iv  4) : — in  omni  adversitate  fortunae  infelicisswium  est 
genus  infortunii  fuisse  felicem 2.  Dante  places  him  in  the  Fourth 
Heaven  among  the  twelve  ‘  living  and  victorious  splendours  ’ 
which  are  the  souls  of  men  learned  in  Theology  ( Paradiso ,  x 
124):— 

Here  in  the  vision  of  all  good  rejoices 
That  sainted  soul,  which  unto  all  that  hearken 
Makes  manifest  the  treachery  of  the  world. 

The  body,  whence  that  soul  was  reft,  is  lying 
Down  in  Cieldauro3,  but  the  soul  from  exile 
And  martyr’s  pain  hath  come  unto  this  peace. 

Two  hundred  years  after  Dante,  the  book  of  Consolation  com¬ 
posed  by  Boethius  in  the  ‘Tower  of  Pavia’  brought  solace  to 
Sir  Thomas  More  in  the  Tower  of  London.  It  has  since  won  the 
admiration  of  the  elder  Scaliger4  and  Casaubon,  and  has  been 
described  as  a  ‘  golden  volume  ’  by  Gibbon,  who  eulogises  its 
author  as  ‘the  last  of  the  Romans  whom  Cato  or  Tully  could 
have  acknowledged  for  their  countryman’5. 

1  Moore’s  Studies ,  i  282 — 8. 

2  Boethius  had  been  anticipated  by  Synesius,  Ep.  57,  lxvi  1392  Migne, 
avvemrideTaL  dr]  [xol  rrj  iriK^q.  tCjv  vapdvTCjv  aiadrjaeL  p.V7ip.r]  tu>v  tt apekdovriov 
ayaduv,  oiW  &pa  ev  olois  yeyovap.tv. 

3  The  (now  desecrated)  Church  of  St  Peter’s  of  the  Golden  Ceiling ,  in 
Pavia. 

4  Poetces  liber  vi ,  Quae  libuit  ludere  in  poesi  divina  sane  sunt;  nihil  illis 
cultius,  nihil  gravius,  neque  densitas  sententiarum  venerem,  neque  acumen 
abstulit  candorem.  Equidem  censeo  paucos  cum  illo  comparari  posse.  Id. 
Hypercriticus ,  ap.  Migne,  lxiii  573,  where  Lipsius  and  G.  J.  Vossius  are  also 
quoted. 

0  Bury’s  Gibbon  iv  197 — 204  (c.  39).  Cp.  also  Hodgkin’s  Italy  and  her 
Invaders,  in  iv  c.  12;  A.  P.  Stanley  in  Smith’s  Diet . ;  Hartmann  in  Pauly- 
Wissowa;  Teuffel,  §  478;  Ebert,  i2  485 — 497.  Boethii  Opera  in  Migne,  vols. 
lxiii,  lxiv ;  Comm,  in  Arist.  irepi  eppurjveLas,  ed.  Meiser  (1877 — 80);  Philo- 
sophiae  Consolationis  libri  V,  ed.  Peiper  (1871);  Anglo-saxon  trans.  by  King 
Alfred,  ed.  Sedgefield  ( 1 899  f) ;  best  English  trans.  H.  R.  James  (1897).  On 
mediaeval  translations,  and  on  Boethius  in  general,  cp.  H.  F.  Stewart’s  (Hulsean) 
Essay  (1891).  On  his  relation  to  Christianity,  Nitzsch  (i860);  Hildebrand 
(1885);  Usener’s  Holderi  Afiecdoton  (1877) ;  and,  on  his  relation  to  the  Middle 
Ages,  Haureau,  Histoire  de  la  Philosophie  Scolastique,  i  112  f  (1872);  Prantl’s 

l6 — 2 


244 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


While  the  life  of  Boethius  was  prematurely  cut  short  by  a 

violent  death,  that  of  his  contemporary  Cassiodorus, 

Cassiodorus  .  J 

the  skilful  and  subservient  Minister  of  the  Ostro- 
gothic  dynasty,  was  prolonged  beyond  the  age  of  ninety.  He 
was  born  between  480  and  490  b.c.  at  Scyllacium  ( Squillace )  in 
southern  Italy.  His  full  name  was  Flavius  Magnus  Aurelius 
Cassiodorus  Senator ,  the  last  of  these  names  alone  being  used  by 
himself  in  his  official  correspondence.  Cassiodorus  is  there  the 
designation  of  his  father,  and  is  not  applied  to  the  son  before  the 
eighth  century,  when  it  is  found  in  Paulus  Diaconus1,  and  also  in 
Alcuin’s  list  of  the  library  at  York : — ‘  Cassiodorus  item,  Chryso- 
stomus  atque  Ioannes’2,  a  line  supplying  evidence  against  the 
form  Cassiodorius ,  which  once  found  favour  with  certain  scholars. 
His  father,  as  Praetorian  Praefect  in  500,  conferred  on  him  the 
post  of  Consiliarius,  or  Assessor  in  his  Court.  A  brilliant  oration 
in  honour  of  Theodoric  led  to  his  being  appointed  Quaestor,  and 
thereby  becoming,  in  accordance  with  the  new  meaning  of  that 
office,  the  Latin  interpreter  of  his  sovereign’s  will  and  the  drafter 
of  his  despatches.  The  duties  of  the  office  are  thus  described  in 
the  ‘  Formula  of  the  Quaestorship  ’  drawn  up  by  himself : — £  the 
Quaestor  has  to  learn  our  inmost  thoughts,  that  he  may  utter 
them  to  our  subjects... He  has  to  be  always  ready  for  a  sudden 
call,  and  must  exercise  the  wonderful  powers  which,  as  Cicero 
has  pointed  out,  are  inherent  in  the  art  of  an  orator... He  has  to 
speak  the  King’s  words  in  the  King’s  own  presence  ’.  He  has  to 
set  forth  every  subject  on  which  he  has  to  treat,  ‘  with  suitable 
embellishments  ’.  He  has  to  receive  and  to  answer  the  petitions 
of  the  Provinces3.  The  extant  letters  written  by  Cassiodorus  as 
Quaestor  extend  from  507  to  51 1  a.d.  Like  his  father,  he 
became  governor  of  Lucania  and  the  region  of  the  Bruttii,  the 
land  of  his  birth.  He  was  sole  consul  in  514,  published  his 


Geschichte  der  Logik,  ii  4;  Mullinger’s  Univ.  of  Cambridge  i  27 — 9;  and  H.  O. 
Taylor’s  Classical  Heritage  of  the  Middle  Ages,  51 — 6. 

1  Hist.  Langob.  i  25  (Justiniani)  temporibus  Cassiodorus  apud  urbem 
Romam  tam  saeculari  quam  divina  scientia  claruit. 

2  Migne,  ci  843. 

3  Variae ,  vi  5,  p.  300  f  of  Hodgkin’s  (condensed  translation  of  the)  Letters 
of  Cassiodorus. 


XIII.] 


CASSIODORUS. 


245 


Chronicon  in  519,  and,  at  the  death  of  Theodoric  in  526,  was 
holding  (probably  not  for  the  first  time)  the  high  position  of 
Magister  Officiorum,  or  ‘  head  of  the  Civil  Service  ’,  which  he 
continued  to  hold  as  virtually  Prime  Minister  to  Theodoric’s 
daughter,  Amalasuentha,  while  she  acted  as  regent  for  her  son 
Athalaric.  Though  formally  Magister  only,  he  also  acted  as 
Quaestor: — erat  solus  ad  universa  sufficie?is  (ix  25,  7);  ‘when¬ 
ever  eloquence  was  required,  the  case  was  always  put  into  his 
hands’  (ix  24,  6).  Between  526  and  533  he  wrote  his  History  of 
the  Goths.  From  533  to  536,  under  the  three  short-lived  suc¬ 
cessors  of  Theodoric,  he  was  Praetorian  Praefect,  as  his  father 
had  been  before  him ;  and  we  still  possess  the  Letter  in  which  he 
informs  himself  of  his  own  elevation  to  that  high  office  (ix  24). 
At  the  end  of  537  he  published,  under  the  title  of  Variae ,  the 
vast  collection  of  his  official  Letters.  In  540,  when  Belisarius, 
the  victorious  general  of  the  ungrateful  Justinian,  entered  Ravenna, 
Cassiodorus  had  apparently  already  withdrawn  from  the  world 
and  had  returned  to  spend  the  evening  of  his  days  on  his  an¬ 
cestral  estate  among  the  Bruttii.  He  there  wrote  an  account  of 
his  ancestors  and  a  treatise  On  the  Soul.  He  also  founded  two 
Monasteries,  and,  for  the  instruction  of  ‘  his  monks  wrote  an 
exceedingly  lengthy  Commentary  on  the  Psalms ;  a  comparatively 
short  Commentary  on  the  Epistles ;  an  ecclesiastical  history  (from 
306  to  439)  called  the  Historia  Tripartita ,  combining  in  a  single 
narrative  the  translations  of  the  Greek  historians  Socrates,  Sozomen 
and  Theodoret,  executed  at  his  request  by  Epiphanius ;  and  an 
educational  treatise  entitled  the  Institutiones  Divinarum  et  Hu- 
manarum  Lectionum  (begun  about  543).  In  the  93rd  year  of  his 
age  his  monks  surprised  him  by  asking  for  a  treatise  on  spelling : 
he  accordingly  produced  a  compilation  De  Orthographia,  borrowed 
from  the  works  of  twelve  grammarians,  beginning  with  Donatus 
and  ending  with  Priscian.  He  survived  the  final  fall  of  the 
Ostrogothic  kingdom  in  553,  and  even  the  invasion  of  Italy  by 
Alboin,  king  of  the  Lombards,  in  568 ;  and  died  between  575  and 
585,  in  the  96th  year  of  his  age1. 

1  Trithemius,  De  Scriptoribus  Ecclesiasticis,  1494,  f.  35,  claruit  temporibus 
Iustini  senioris  [518 — 527]  et  usque  ad  imperii  Iustini  iunioris  paene  finem 
[565 — 578],  annos  habens  aetatis  plus  quam  xcv  anno  domini  DLXXV. 


246 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


The  Chroniconx  of  Cassiodorus,  which  closes  its  abstract  of 
the  history  of  the  world  with  519  a.d.,  is  mainly  an  inaccurate 
copy  of  Eusebius  and  Prosper,  while  towards  its  close  it  is  unduly 
partial  to  the  Goths.  The  charge  of  partiality  has  also  been 
brought  against  his  Gothic  History ,  in  which  he  had  aimed  at 
giving  an  air  of  legitimacy  to  the  dominion  of  the  Goths  in  Italy. 
It  only  survives  in  the  abridgement  by  Iordanes2.  The  Com¬ 
mentary  on  the  Psalms  and  the  Historia  Tripartita  were  widely 
known  in  the  Middle  Ages.  His  other  works  have  points  of 
contact  with  our  present  subject.  His  official  Letters,  arranged 
in  twelve  books,  to  which  he  gave  the  name  of  Variae ,  are 
undoubtedly  addressed  to  a  vast  variety  of  persons,  from  the 
emperor  Justinian  down  to  the  chief  of  the  shorthand  writers ; 
but,  so  far  from  being  marked  by  the  corresponding  variety  of 
style  which  their  writer  claims  for  them3,  they  are  apt  to  strike  a 
modern  reader  as  almost  uniformly  inflated,  florid,  tawdry  and 
unduly  grandiloquent4.  A  certain  degree  of  elevation  of  manner 
may  fairly  be  expected  of  a  minister  who  proudly  recalls  his 
protracted  conversations  with  his  king, — those  gloriosa  colloquiab , 
in  which,  besides  discoursing  on  affairs  of  State,  the  monarch 
would  inquire  concerning  the  sayings  of  wise  men  of  old6;  but  it 
must  be  confessed  that,  in  the  Letters  in  general,  the  thought  is 
‘often  a  piece  of  tinsel  wrapped  up  in  endless  folds  of  tissue- 
paper’7.  He  is  specially  fond  of  beginning  and  ending  his  letters 
with  ‘wise  saws’,  and  interspersing  them  with  ‘modern  instances’. 
There  is  often  a  ‘lack  of  humour’7  in  the  incongruous  way  in 
which  documents  otherwise  not  deficient  in  dignity  are  studded 
with  stories  about  birds,  such  as  thrushes,  doves  and  partridges, 
storks,  cranes  and  gulls,  hawks,  eagles  and  vultures ;  or  beasts, 
like  the  chameleon,  the  salamander  and  the  elephant ;  or  fishes, 

1  Migne,  lxix  1214 — 48;  first  edited  by  Cochlaeus,  who  dedicated  it  (in 
1528)  to  Sir  Thomas  More,  while  he  dedicated  to  Henry  VIII  the  first  ed.  of 
some  of  the  Variae  (1529). 

2  Ed.  Mommsen,  1882  {Mon.  Germ.  Hist.). 

3  Praef.  §  15. 

4  Cp.  R.  W.  Church,  Miscellaneous  Essays,  p.  169  f,  191 — 8,  ed.  1888; 
Bury,  Later  Roman  Empire ,  ii  187. 

5  Praef.  §  8. 

7  Hodgkin’s  Cassiodorus,  p.  17. 


6  ix  24,  8. 


XIII.] 


CASSIODORUS. 


247 


for  example,  the  sucking-fish  and  torpedo,  the  pike  and  the 
dolphin,  the  murex  with  its  purple  dye,  and  the  echinus ,  ‘that 
dainty  of  the  deep’.  ‘The  wandering  birds  love  their  own  nests; 
the  beasts  haste  to  their  own  lodgings  in  the  brake  ;  the  vo¬ 
luptuous  fish,  roaming  the  fields  of  ocean,  returns  to  its  own 
well-known  cavern  :  how  much  more  should  Rome  be  loved  by 
her  children !  ’ 1  This  last  is  actually  from  a  letter  on  the  em¬ 
bellishment  of  Rome.  Elsewhere  we  read  of  the  repair  of  its 
walls,  its  temples  and  its  aqueducts2,  and  of  the  structure,  as  well 
as  the  factions,  of  the  Circus  Maximus 3.  In  the  diploma  for  the 
appointment  of  a  public  architect  in  Rome,  some  of  the  future 
characteristics  of  Gothic  architecture,  the  ‘  slender  shafts  of 
shapely  stone’,  compared  by  Sir  Walter  Scott  to  ‘bundles  of 
lances  which  garlands  had  bound  ’,  seem  almost  to  be  anticipated 
in  the  graceful  phrases  of  the  secretary  of  the  Ostrogothic 
dynasty  : — quid  dicamus  columnarum  iunceam  proceritatem  ?  moles 
illas  sublimissimas  fahricarum  quasi  quibusdam  erectis  hastilibus 
contineriC  Marbles  and  mosaics  are  ordered  for  Ravenna5  ;  in  a 
letter  of  537  we  have  the  first  historic  notice  of  Venice6;  we  also 
come  across  delightful  descriptions  of  Como,  of  the  baths  of 
Bormio,  Abano  and  Baiae7,  and  of  the  milk-cure  for  consumption 
among  the  mountain-pastures  south  of  the  Bay  of  Naples8.  We 
read  of  a  present  of  amber  from  the  dwellers  on  the  Baltic9,  and 
of  the  arrival  at  Rome  of  a  water-finder  from  Africa10.  An  order 
for  the  supply  of  writing-material  for  the  public  offices  transports 
us  to  the  Nile,  and  prompts  a  discourse  on  the  invention  of  paper, 
‘which  has  made  eloquence  possible’11.  To  the  historian  the 
great  interest  of  the  letters  of  ‘this  last  of  Roman  statesmen’12  lies 
in  the  way  in  which  they  illustrate  in  detail  the  working  out  of 
the  broad  principles  of  law  and  administration  embodied  in  the 
Edict  of  Theodoric13,  and  the  promotion  of  peaceful,  orderly  and 

1  i  21  (p.  156  Hodgkin).  2  i  25,  28;  ii  34;  iii  31. 

3  iii  51  etc.  4  vii  15,  3,  and  Scott’s  Lay ,  ii  9  and  11. 

5  i  6;  iii  9.  6  xii  24.  7  xi  14;  x  29;  ii  39;  ix  6. 

8  xi  10.  9  v  2.  10  iii  53.  11  xi  38. 

12  Ugo  Balzani’s  Early  Chronicles  of  Italy,  p.  12. 

13  R.  W.  Church,  Miscellaneous  Essays,  p.  158,  ed.  1888;  Hodgkin’s  Italy 
and  her  Invaders ,  iii  280. 


248 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


civilised  relations  between  his  Gothic  and  his  Roman  subjects1. 
They  justify  the  ascription  to  the  king  of  the  high  merits  of 
wisdom2  and  toleration3,  and  the  noble  resolve  implied  in  the 
phrase : — nos  quibus  cordi  est  in  melius  cuncta  mutare.  They 
describe  the  Burgundians4  and  Pannonians5  as  barbarians  in 
comparison  with  the  Goths.  In  a  document  drawn  up  for  the 
successor  of  Theodoric,  which  is  interesting  to  scholars  as  well  as 
to  historians,  a  broad  distinction  is  drawn  between  the  barbarian 
kings  and  the  legitimate  Gothic  lords  of  Italy.  The  subject  is 
the  increase  of  the  salaries  of  grammarians. 

‘  Grammar  is  the  noble  foundation  of  all  literature,  the  glorious  mother  of 

eloquence . The  grammatical  art  is  not  used  by  barbarous  kings  :  it  abides 

peculiarly  with  legitimate  sovereigns.  Other  nations  have  arms :  the  lords  of 
the  Romans  alone  have  eloquence... The  Grammarian  is  a  man  to  whom  every 
hour  unemployed  is  misery,  and  it  is  a  shame  that  such  a  man  should  have 
to  wait  the  caprice  of  a  public  functionary  before  he  gets  his  pay ’...Such  men 
‘are  the  moulders  of  the  style  and  character  of  our  youth.  Let  them...,  with 
their  mind  at  ease  about  their  subsistence,  devote  themselves  with  all  their 
vigour  to  the  teaching  of  liberal  arts’6. 

Cassiodorus  recommends  Felix,  a  native  of  Gaul,  for  the 
consulship  of  5 1 1  on  literary  as  well  as  other  grounds,  because  he 
is  a  verborum  novellus  sator^ .  He  cannot  refer  to  Rhegium  without 
reminding  the  recipients  of  a  State-document  that  the  place  is  ‘so 
called  from  the  Greek  prjyi'v/u’8.  He  oddly  supposes  that  Cir- 
censes  stands  for  circum  and  enses 9.  Writing  to  one  of  his 
subordinates  in  the  law-court,  the  holder  of  the  then  very  humble 
office  of  Cancellarius ,  he  makes  the  following  interesting  reference 
to  the  origin  of  the  name  : — 

Remember  your  title,  Cancellarius.  Ensconced  behind  the  lattice-work 
( cancelli )  of  your  compartment,  keeping  guard  behind  those  windowed  doors, 
however  studiously  you  may  conceal  yourself,  it  is  inevitable  that  you  should 
be  the  observed  of  all  observers10. 

It  is  only  once  (in  his  Preface)  that  he  alludes  to  Horace 

1  On  civilitas  (defined  in  Mommsen’s  Index  as  status  reipublicae  iustus )  see 
Hodgkin’s  Cassiodorus ,  p.  20  and  index. 

2  xi  1,  19  sapientia  ( v.l .  patientia). 

3  ii  27,  nemo  cogitur  ut  credat  in vitus. 

4  i  45  f.  5  iii  23 f.  6  ix  2i,  p.  406  Hodgkin. 

7  ii  3.  8  xii  14.  0  iii  51. 

10  xi  6,  pp.  1 1 2,  463  Hodgkin. 


XIII.] 


CASSIODORUS. 


249 


( nonumque prematur  in  annum ) ;  but  he  has  several  reminiscences 
or  adaptations  of  Virgil,  including  the  phrase  often  cited  since  in 
speeches  of  eulogy  : — primo  avulso  non  deficit  alter  aureus \  He 
quotes  Cicero’s  rhetorical  works  alone1 2,  and  Tacitus  solely  to 
inform  the  dwellers  on  the  Baltic  of  the  supposed  origin  of 
amber3.  Throughout  the  Letters  he  exhibits  (though  in  an 
infinitely  lower  degree)  ‘  the  encyclopaedic  culture  of  a  Cicero  or 
the  elder  Pliny’4. 

In  the  last  book  of  the  Variae,  he  paints  a  pleasant  picture  of 
the  first  city  of  the  Bruttii,  Scyllacium,  the  place  of  his  birth.  He 
describes  it  as  ‘hanging  like  a  cluster  of  grapes  upon  the  hills, 
basking  in  the  brightness  of  the  sun  all  the  day  long,  yet  cooled 
by  the  breezes  from  the  sea,  and  looking  at  her  leisure  on  the 
labours  of  the  husbandmen  in  the  cornfields,  the  vineyards,  and 
the  olive-groves  around  her’5.  Such  was  the  region  to  which  he 
withdrew,  after  spending  thirty  years  in  the  service  of  the  Ostro- 
gothic  dynasty,  there  to  devote  himself  for  the  rest  of  his  long  life 
to  a  work  destined  to  have  a  lasting  influence  on  the  learning  of 
the  Middle  Ages.  He  had  already  been  corresponding  with 
Agapetus,  the  Pope  of  535-6,  on  a  scheme  for  founding  by 
subscription  at  Rome  a  theological  school  on  the  model  of  those 
of  Alexandria  and  Nisibis6.  Agapetus  selected  a  house  on  the 
Caelian  hill,  afterwards  connected  with  the  Church  of  San  Gregorio 
Magno,  and  there  built  a  library : — a  line  from  an  inscription,  seen 
in  the  ninth  century  by  a  pilgrim  from  Einsiedlen,  says  of  this 
Pope: — codicibus  pulchrum  condidit  arte  locum 7.  The  wider 
scheme  for  a  theological  school  at  Rome  had  been  rendered 
impossible  by  the  conflicts  which  arose  on  the  invasion  of  Italy 
by  Belisarius ;  but  Cassiodorus  was  now  able  to  carry  out  his  plan 
on  a  suitable  site  in  the  region  of  his  birth.  While  he  wras  still 
Praetorian  Praefect,  he  had  formed  a  series  of  vivaria ,  or  preserves 
for  fishes,  at  the  foot  of  the  Moscian  mount  overlooking  the  bay 

1  Var.  v  4;  cp.  ii  40,  7;  v  21,  42  §  ir,  and  xii  14  ( intuba  is  not  amara 
among  the  Bruttii). 

2  De  Or.  i  30;  Brutus  46.  3  Germ.  45  (  Var .  v  2). 

4  R.  W.  Church,  l.c.,  p.  160.  5  xii  15,  p.  8  Hodgkin. 

6  Inst.  Praef.  Migne  lxx  1105!;  cp.  Hodgkin  p.  56. 

7  Einsiedlen  MS  (De  Rossi,  quoted  in  J.  W.  Clark’s  Care  of  Books,  p.  44). 


250 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


of  Squillace1;  and  here  he  founded  one  of  his  two  monasteries, 
which  (like  the  modern  College  of  Fishponds  near  Bristol)  obtained 
from  these  vivaria  the  name  of  the  monasterium  Vivariense 2. 
We  read  of  its  well-watered  gardens,  and  its  baths  for  the  sick  by 
the  banks  of  the  neighbouring  stream  of  Pellena3,  while  ‘  at  the 
foot  of  the  hills  and  above  the  sand  of  the  sea’  there  was  a 
‘fountain  of  Arethusa’,  fringed  with  a  crown  of  rustling  reeds, 
making  a  green  and  pleasant  place  all  round  it4.  For  those  who 
preferred  a  more  unbroken  solitude,  there  was  another  monastery, 
or  rather  hermitage,  in  the  ‘charming  seclusion  of  the  Castle  Hill  ’, 
a  lonely  spot  surrounded  by  ancient  walls,  possibly  of  some 
deserted  fort5 6.  Such  are  the  descriptive  touches  preserved  mainly 
in  his  Institutiones ,  a  partly  theological  and  partly  encyclopaedic 
work  which  he  composed  for  the  benefit  of  ‘  his  monks  ’  between 
543  and  555s.  In  the  first  part  of  this  work,  bearing  the  separate 
title  De  Institutione  Divinarum  Litterarum ,  he  describes  the 
contents  of  the  nine  codices  which  made  up  the  Old  and  New 
Testaments ;  warns  his  monks  against  impairing  the  purity  of  the 
sacred  text  by  merely  plausible  emendations  ;  only  those  who  have 
attained  the  highest  learning  in  sacred  and  secular  literature  can 
be  allowed  to  correct  the  sacred  texts.  Revisers  of  other  texts 
must  study  the  works  of  the  ancients,  libros  priscorum  (1130  b), 
and  correct  those  texts  with  the  aid  of  those  who  are  masters  in 
secular  literature.  He  notices  the  Christian  historians,  and  some 
of  the  principal  Fathers,  incidentally  mentioning  as  a  colleague  in 
his  literary  labours  the  monk  Dionysius  (Exiguus),  who  settled 
the  date  of  the  Christian  era,  the  earliest  use  of  which  occurs  in 

1  Var.  xii  15,  14. 

‘2  Mr  A.  J.  Evans  places  the  Roman  Scyllacium  at  Roccella,  6  miles  N.E. 
of  the  modern  Squillace ,  and  the  monastery  between  Squillace  and  the  shore, 
Virgil’s  navifragum  Scylaceum  (Hodgkin,  pp.  9,  68 — 72).  Roccella  is  described 
as  ‘a  little  world  of  scenic  splendour’  and  is  the  subject  of  a  fine  illustration  in 
Lear’s  Calabria ,  p.  104. 

3  Inst,  i  29. 

4  Var.  viii  32  (p.  380  Hodgkin). 

5  Inst,  i  29,  montis  Castelli  secreta  suavia...muris  pristinis  ambientibus 
inclusa. 

6  Mommsen’s  Pref.  to  Variae,  p.  xi.  A  later  revision  is  implied  in  the 
reference  in  c.  17  to  the  end  of  Justinian’s  reign  (565). 


XIII,] 


CASSIODORUS. 


251 


the  year  562  a.d.1  He  urges  his  monks  to  cultivate  learning, 
not  however  as  an  end  in  itself,  but  as  a  means  towards  the 
better  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures2.  After  dealing  with  secular 
literature  and  recommending  the  study  of  the  Classics,  he  exhorts 
those  of  his  readers,  who  have  no  call  towards  literary  work,  to 
spend  their  efforts  on  agriculture  and  gardening;  and  in  this 
connexion  to  read  the  ancient  authors  on  these  subjects : — 
Gargilius  Martialis,  Columella  and  Aemilianus  Macer,  manuscripts 
of  which  he  had  left  for  their  perusal3.  It  has  been  surmised 
that,  but  for  Cassiodorus,  the  treatise  of  Cato  De  Re  Rustica 
would  have  perished4;  but  it  may  be  remarked  that  he  does  not 
actually  mention  that  work.  He  spent  large  sums  on  the  purchase 
of  mss  from  northern  Africa  and  other  parts  of  the  world5,  and 
encouraged  his  monks  to  copy  them  with  care.  He  mentions  a 
certain  division  of  the  books  of  the  Bible  found  in  codice  grandiore 
lit  ter  a  grandiore  (clariore  ?)  conscripto  containing  Jerome’s  version. 
This  ms  he  had  presumably  brought  from  Ravenna,  and  it  has 
been  conjectured  that  part  of  it  survives  in  the  first  and  oldest 
quaternion  of  the  codex  Amiatinus  of  the  Vulgate,  now  in  the 
Laurentian  Library  in  Florence.  The  frontispiece  of  the  latter 
represents  Ezra  writing  the  Law,  and  the  press  with  open  doors 
in  the  background  has  a  general  resemblance  to  that  containing 
the  four  Gospels  among  the  mosaics  of  the  mausoleum  of  Galla 
Placidia  at  Ravenna  (440) 6.  The  books  in  the  monastic  library 
of  Cassiodorus  were  preserved  in  presses  (armaria),  nine  of  which 
contained  the  Scriptures,  and  works  bearing  on  their  study,  the 
few  Greek  mss  being  in  the  eighth  armarium.  The  arrangement 
in  general  was  not  by  authors  but  by  subjects.  The  biographical 
works  of  St  Jerome  and  Gennadius  were  combined  in  a  single 
codex ,  and  similarly  with  certain  rhetorical  works  of  Cicero, 
Quintilian  and  Fortunatianus7. 

1  Computus  Paschalis  in  Migne,  lxix  1249,  first  ascribed  to  Cassiodorus 
by  Pithoeus. 

2  Inst,  i  28,  p.  1142  a — B.  3  ib.  p.  1142 — 3. 

4  Norden’s  Kims tprosa,  p.  664.  5  Inst,  i  c.  8. 

6  H.  J.  White,  in  Studia  Biblica ,  1890,  ii  273 — 308;  J.  W.  Clark’s  Care  of 
Books ,  frontispiece,  and  pp.  39 — 41. 

7  i  8,  1 7 ;  ii  2.  Franz,  Cass.  pp.  80 — 92,  gives  a  list  of  books  either  certainly 
or  probably  included  in  the  Library. 


252 


THE  ROMAN  ACxE. 


[CHAP. 


He  is  specially  interested  in  those  of  his  monks  who  are 
careful  copyists.  In  describing  the  scriptorium  he  dwells  on  the 
special  privileges  of  the  antiquarius ,  who,  1  by  copying  the  divine 
precepts,  spreads  them  far  and  wide,  enjoying  the  glorious 
privilege  of  silently  preaching  salvation  to  mortals  by  means  of 
the  hand  alone,  and  thus  foiling  with  pen  and  ink  the  temptations 
of  the  devil ;  every  word  of  the  Lord  written  by  the  copyist  is  a 
wound  inflicted  on  Satan’1.  The  art  of  the  copyist  had  been 
practised  by  the  younger  monks  alone  in  the  monastery  of 
St  Martin’s  at  Tours2;  and,  in  the  rules  laid  down  by  Ferreolus  in 
Gaul,  c.  550  a.d.,  reading  and  copying  were  considered  suitable 
occupations  for  monks  who  were  too  weak  for  severer  work3. 
But  these  arts  receive  a  far  stronger  sanction  from  Cassiodorus. 
He  himself  set  the  example  of  making  a  careful  copy  of  the 
Psalms,  the  Prophets  and  the  Epistles4. 

Some  precepts  of  spelling  are  included  in  the  Institutiones , 
from  which  it  appears  that  Cassiodorus  approved  of  in  in  compo¬ 
sition  being  assimilated  to  the  following  consonant  for  the  sake  of 
euphony5.  For  the  same  reason  he  prefers  quicquam  to  quidquam. 
To  avoid  mistakes  the  copyist  must  read  the  works  of  ancient 
authors  on  orthography,  Velius  Longus,  Curtius  Valerianus, 
Papyrianus,  *  Adamantius  Martyrius  ’  on  V  and  B,  Eutyches  on 
the  rough  breathing,  and  Phocas  on  genders.  These  works  he 
had  himself  collected  to  the  best  of  his  ability.  He  adds  that 
biblical  mss  should  be  bound  in  covers  worthy  of  their  contents, 
and  that  he  had  supplied  a  pattern  volume,  including  specimens 
of  different  kinds  of  binding.  For  use  by  night  he  had  provided 
lamps  so  skilfully  contrived  that  they  never  ran  short  of  oil  and 
never  needed  trimming,  while  he  had  also  constructed  a  sundial 
for  bright  days  and  a  water-clock  for  the  night  and  for  days  that 
were  overcast6. 

In  the  ninth  century,  the  first  part  of  the  Institutiones  was 

* 

1  Inst,  i  30.  2  Sulp.  Severus,  Vita  S.  Martini ,  c.  7. 

3  c.  28,  paginam  pingat  digito,  qui  terram  non  praescribit  aratro  (Franz, 
Cass.  p.  56). 

4  Praef.  p.  1109B. 

5  i  15  (p.  1129  a,  Migne),  multa  etiam  respectu  euphoniae  propter  subse- 

quentes  litteras  probabiliter  immutamus,  ut  illumination  irrisio,  immutabilis , 
impius ,  improbus.  6  i  30. 


XIII.] 


CASSIODORUS. 


253 


imitated  by  Rabanus  Maurus  in  his  treatise  De  Institutione 
Clericorum,  and  was  used  as  a  text-book  at  the  monastery  of 
Reichenau1.  In  the  second  part,  which  is  a  brief  manual  De 
Artibus  ac  Disciplinis  Liberalium  Litterarum 2,  Cassiodorus  gives 
a  succinct  account  of  the  seven  liberal  arts,  half  the  work  being 
devoted  to  Dialectic  alone,  and  the  rest  about  equally  divided 
between  the  six  other  arts,  with  a  somewhat  fuller  treatment  of 
Rhetoric  in  particular.  The  allegory  of  Martianus  Capella  on  the 
liberal  arts  is  not  mentioned  by  Cassiodorus,  but  it  can  hardly  be 
doubted  that,  by  emphasizing  the  sanctity  of  the  number  ‘  seven 
by  giving  a  new  meaning  to  the  saying  that  ‘Wisdom  hath 
builded  her  house,  she  hath  hewn  out  her  seven  pillars  ’,  and  by 
connecting  the  seven  arts  with  the  education  of  his  monks,  he 
unconsciously  increased  the  popularity  of  that  pagan  work3.  The 
short  chapter  on  Music  mentions  a  work  by  Albinus,  which  the 
author  remembers  reading  in  Rome,  but  it  had  possibly  been  lost, 
gent  Hi  incur sione  sublatus.  The  long  chapter  on  Dialectic  includes 
an  abstract  of  a  large  part  of  the  Organon  of  Aristotle,  in  the 
course  of  which  the  reader  is  referred  to  Porphyry’s  Introduction, 
and  to  the  six  books  of  the  commentary  on  the  De  Interpretatione 
by  Boethius  (viro  magnifico ),  a  ms  of  which  is  left  to  the  monks. 
The  quaint  saying  that  Aristotle,  in  writing  the  De  Interpretatione , 
calamum  in  mente  tingebat ,  is  here  quoted.  A  chapter  on  logical 
fallacies  is  added,  besides  some  matter  more  closely  connected 
with  Rhetoric  than  Dialectic.  At  the  close  of  this  part  of  the 
work,  Plato  and  Aristotle  are  oddly  described  as  opinabiles 
magistri  saecularium  litterarum ,  a  phrase  which,  considering  the 
author’s  powers  of  rhetorical  expression,  is  faint  praise  indeed. 
It  may  be  noticed,  however,  that  the  highly  artificial  style  of  the 
Variae  is  somewhat  simplified  in  the  Institutiones ,  where  (in  the 
author’s  own  language)  plus  utilitatis  invenies  quam  decoris 
(p.  1240  c).  Erasmus,  while  fully  appreciating  the  high  character 
and  the  piety  of  Cassiodorus,  does  not  approve  of  his  attempting 

1  Franz,  Cass.  p.  124.  2  Migne,  lxx  1150 — 1213. 

3  H.  Parker,  in  Historical  Review ,  v  456.  ‘The  old  pagan  learning  was 
never  destroyed,  notwithstanding  the  complete  victory  of  Christianity’;  and 
Cassiodorus  was  one  of  those  who,  *  by  Christianizing  it  to  a  certain  extent,  made 
it  more  popular  to  later  generations’  (Ugo  Balzani,  p.  5). 


254 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


in  the  Institutiones  to  cover  the  whole  field  of  sacred  and  secular 
learning1.  But  the  work  was  doubtless  useful  to  the  unlearned 
monks  for  whom  it  was  mainly  intended.  The  chapter  on 
Rhetoric  was  imitated  by  Isidore  of  Seville,  and  by  Alcuin,  who 
also  owes  much  to  that  on  Dialectic2. 

The  treatise  De  Orthographia  gives  rules  of  spelling  to  enable 
the  copyist  to  avoid  certain  common  mistakes.  The  four  chapters 
extracted  from  the  treatise  of  ‘Adamantius  Martyrius’  on  V  and 
B,  show  that  those  letters  must  have  been  constantly  confounded 
in  the  pronunciation  of  imperfectly  educated  persons,  who  drew 
little  (if  any)  distinction  between  vivere  and  bibere 3.  Among  the 
lost  works  of  Cassiodorus  were  some  compilations  from  Donatus 
and  Sacerdos  (p.  1123  d).  By  his  careful  attention  to  the 
training  of  copyists  he  did  much  towards  preventing  the  earlier 
Latin  literature  from  perishing.  He  knew  Greek,  but  preferred 
to  read  Greek  authors  in  Latin  translations4.  He  caused  a  Latin 
rendering  to  be  made  of  the  Jewish  Antiquities  of  Josephus5. 
St  Jerome  in  his  cell  at  Bethlehem  had  set  the  first  great  example 
of  isolated  literary  labour.  Cassiodorus  appears  to  have  been  the 
first  to  have  applied  this  principle  in  a  wider  and  more  systematic 
manner  to  the  organisation  of  the  convent.  As  has  been  well 
observed  by  Dr  Hodgkin,  ‘the  great  merit  of  Cassiodorus,  that 
which  shows  his  deep  insight  into  the  needs  of  his  age  and 
entitles  him  to  the  eternal  gratitude  of  Europe,  was  his  determina¬ 
tion  to  utilise  the  vast  leisure  of  the  convent  for  the  preservation 
of  Divine  and  human  learning,  and  for  its  transmission  to  later 
ages  \  Similarly  it  has  been  remarked  by  Prof.  W.  Ramsay  that 
‘the  benefit  derived  from  his  precepts  and  example  was  by  no 
means  confined  to  the  establishment  over  which  he  presided,  nor 
to  the  epoch  when  he  flourished.  The  same  system  was  gradually 
introduced  into  similar  institutions,  the  transcription  of  ancient 
works  became  one  of  the  regular  and  stated  occupations  of  the 

1  Ep.  1038.  2  Franz,  Cass.  p.  125. 

3  p.  1261  C,  bibo...2c  vita  per  v,  a  potu  per  b  scribendum  est.  Mistakes,  such 

as  vibanius  for  bibamus ,  and  fobeas  for  foveas ,  actually  occur  in  mss  of  the 
Vulgate  (Franz,  Cass.  p.  61). 

4  Praef.  1108  A,  dulcius  enim  ab  unoquoque  suscipitur,  quod  patrio  sermone 

narratur.  5  Inst,  i  17. 


XIII.] 


CASSIODORUS. 


255 


monastic  life,  and  thus,  in  all  probability,  we  are  indirectly 
indebted  to  Cassiodorus  for  the  preservation  of  a  large  proportion 
of  the  most  precious  relics  of  ancient  genius’1.  In  fact  it  is 
generally  agreed  that  the  civilisation  of  subsequent  centuries,  and, 
in  particular,  the  institution  of  monastic  libraries  and  monastic 
schools,  where  the  light  of  learning  continued  to  shine  in  the 
‘  Dark  Ages  ’,  owed  much  to  the  prescience  of  Cassiodorus2 3. 

Boethius  and  Cassiodorus  have  been  happily  described  as  the 
‘great  twin-brethren5,  and  have  been  compared  to  a  ‘double¬ 
headed  Janus53.  While  the  gaze  of  Boethius  looks  back  on  the 
declining  day  of  the  old  classical  world,  that  of  Cassiodorus  looks 
forward  to  the  dawn  of  the  Christian  Middle  Ages ;  but  both 
alike,  in  their  different  ways,  prevented  the  tradition  of  a  great 
past  from  being  overwhelmed  by  the  storms  of  barbarism. 
Cassiodorus,  who  had  devoted  the  first  half  of  his  life  to  Politics, 
and  the  second  to  Religion,  stands  in  more  than  one  sense  on  the 
confines  of  two  worlds,  the  Roman  and  the  Teutonic,  the  Ancient 
and  the  Modern.  It  has  even  been  observed  that  the  very  word 
modernus  is  first  used  with  any  frequency  by  Cassiodorus4. 

Apart  from  the  Institutiones  he  does  not  appear  to  have  drawn 
up  any  written  Rule  for  the  guidance  of  his  monks,  and  we  know 
nothing  of  the  fortunes  of  his  monastery  after  the  death  of  the 
founder.  He  recommends  his  monks  to  read  the  Institutes  of 
Cassian,  the  founder  of  Western  Monasticism ;  while  he  warns 
them  against  that  writer’s  views  on  free  will6.  Of  Benedict  and 
the  Benedictine  Rule  we  have  no  mention  in  his  extant  writings. 
His  precepts  are  indeed  consistent  with  that  Rule,  but  there  is 
nothing  to  show  that  they  were  suggested  by  it.  He  is  first 
claimed  as  a  Benedictine  by  Trithemius  (d.  1516)6,  but  the 

1  W.  Ramsay  in  Smith’s  Diet.  Biogr.  s.v. 

2  Cp.  Ebert,  i  5002,  and  Norden’s  Kunstprosa ,  p.  663 — 5. 

3  Ebert,  i  486s,  einen  Januskopf  bildet  dieses  Dioskurenpaar. 

4  Hodgkin,  pp.  1 — 2.  Cp.  Var.  iv  45  (Symmachus)  antiquorum  diligentis- 
simus  imitator,  modernorum  nobilissimus  institutor;  iii  5,  3,  modernis  saeculis 
moribus  ornabatur  antiquis;  8,  1  ;  31,  4;  viii  14,  2;  25,  1 ;  xi  1,  19.  The  word 
is  found  in  Cassiodorus’s  slightly  older  contemporary,  Ennodius,  lxiii  54  a, 
232  b,  and  in  a  diploma  of  499  (Wolfflin,  Rhein.  Mus.  xxxvii  92). 

5  Inst,  i  29. 

6  De  viris  Ulus  tribus  ord.  Ben.  i  c.  6  and  iii  c.  7. 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


256 

silence  of  Cassiodorus  is  considered  by  Baronius 1  to  be  a  sufficient 
reason  for  rejecting  this  claim,  and  Baronius  is  not  really  refuted 
by  Garet  in  his  lengthy  dissertation  on  this  subject  (1679 )2.  The 
Benedictine  monastery  on  Monte  Cassino  was  founded  in  529, 
more  than  ten  years  before  that  of  Cassiodorus  on  the  bay  of 
Squillace ;  but  it  was  the  latter  which  set  the  first  example  of  that 
devotion  to  literary  labour  which  afterwards  became  one  of  the 
highest  distinctions  of  the  Benedictine  order3. 

Benedict,  who  belonged  to  the  same  Anician  gens  as  Boethius, 
was  born  at  Nursia,  north  of  the  old  Sabine  region, 

Benedict  .  \  .  6  ’ 

in  480,  the  year  (either  actually  or  approximately) 
of  the  birth  of  Boethius  and  Cassiodorus.  Among  those  whom 
he  gathered  round  him,  when,  despectis  litterarum  studiis 4,  he  had 
fled  from  the  delights  and  the  dangers  of  Rome  to  the  solitudes 
near  Subiaco,  was  the  young  Roman  noble,  Maurus,  afterwards 
known  as  St  Maur.  After  a  time  he  went  some  50  miles  south¬ 
ward  to  Monte  Cassino,  where  a  temple  of  Apollo  was  still 
standing  with  a  sacred  grove  which  was  a  centre  of  superstition 
among  the  surrounding  peasants.  The  people  were  persuaded  to 
destroy  the  altar  and  burn  the  grove5;  and  higher  up  the  hill 
the  last  stronghold  of  paganism  was  superseded  in  529  by  a 
monastery,  which,  notwithstanding  many  changes,  still  looks 
down  from  a  height  of  more  than  1700  feet  on  a  wild  mountain 
district  to  the  north,  on  the  rocky  summits  of  the  Abruzzi  to  the 
east,  and  to  the  west  and  south  on  the  long  reaches  of  the  silent 
stream  that  winds  through  the  broad  valley  of  the  Garigliano, — 
the  rura ,  quae  Liris  quieta  mordet  aqua  taciturnus  amnis.  Near 
the  foot  of  the  hill  were  the  ruins  of  a  Roman  amphitheatre,  and 
hard  by  was  the  site  of  the  villa  of  ‘that  pagan  Benedictine’6, 

1  Annales,  ad  ann.  494  (no.  77).  2  Migne,  Ixix  483 — 496. 

3  Cassiodori  Opera  in  Migne,  lxix,  lxx;  Variae,  ed.  Mommsen  (in  Mon. 
Hist.  Germ.)  1894;  Hodgkin’s  Italy  and  her  Invaders ,  1885,  iii  274 — 7,  310 — 
328,  and  Letters  of  Cassiodorus ,  1886,  with  the  literature  there  quoted,  esp. 
A.  Franz,  M.  Aur.  Cassiodorus  Senator ,  pp.  137,  1872,  and  R.  W.  Church,  in 

Ch.  Quarterly ,  1800  ( Misc .  Essays ,  1888,  pp.  155 — 204);  also  Bury’s  Gibbon, 
iv  i8of,  522. 

4  Gregor ii  Dialogic  ii  init. 

6  ib.  ii  8;  cp.  Dante,  Paradiso,  22,  37 — 45. 

6  Montalembert,  Monks  of  the  West ,  i  434,  ed.  1896. 


XIII.] 


BENEDICT. 


257 


Varro.  The  three  virtues  inculcated  in  the  Benedictine  discipline 
were  silence  in  solitude  and  seclusion,  and  humility  and  obedience ;  - 
the  three  occupations  of  life  which  were  enjoined,  the  worship  of 
God,  reading,  and  manual  labour.  Chapter  48  of  the  ‘  Rule  of 
St  Benedict’  after  declaring  that  ‘idleness  is  the  enemy  of  the 
soul’,  prescribes  manual  labour,  combined  with  the  setting  apart 
of  certain  hours  (nearly  two  hours  before  noon  in  summer,  and 
until  8  or  9  a.m.  in  other  parts  of  the  year)  for  sacred  reading, 
lectio  divina.  During  Lent  each  of  the  monks  is  to  receive  a 
book  from  the  library  and  to  read  it  straight  through.  One  of 
the  monks  is  also  chosen  in  each  week  to  read  aloud  to  the 
rest  during  their  meals  (c.  38).  None  are  to  presume  to  have 
either  a  book  or  tablets,  or  even  a  pen  (, graffium )  of  their  own 
(c.  33)  L  Thus  the  learned  labours  of  the  Benedictines  were  no 
part  of  the  original  requirements  laid  down  by  the  founder  of 
their  order.  Before  the  death  of  the  founder  (c.  542),  his  faithful 
disciple,  Maurus,  had  crossed  the  Alps;  had  been  welcomed  at 
Orleans;  and  at  Glanfeuil  on  the  Loire,  near  Angers,  had  founded 
the  first  Benedictine  monastery  in  France,  on  the  site  afterwards 
known  as  St  Maur-sur-Loire2.  The  name  of  St  Maur  still 
survives  in  the  English  surname  of  Seymour ;  and  it  is  associated 
for  ever  with  the  learned  labours  of  the  French  Benedictines  of 
the  ‘Congregation  of  St  Maur’,  whose  headquarters  from  1630  to 
the  French  Revolution  were  the  Abbey  of  Saint  Germain-des-Pres 
in  the  south  of  Paris3. 

It  is  said  that,  late  in  life,  Benedict  foresaw  that  the  lofty 
buildings  of  Monte  Cassino  would  fall  in  ruins  before  the  ravages 
of  the  spoiler4,  a  foreboding  fulfilled  by  the  Lombards  in  583,  and 
the  Saracens  in  857.  Towards  the  end  of  542  he  was  visited  by 
Totila,  king  of  the  Goths,  who  came  not  to  destroy  the  fabric  but 
to  consult  its  founder,  and  to  depart  impressed  with  the  lessons  of 
humanity  which  he  had  learnt  from  Benedict5.  It  is  also  said 

1  Benedicti  Regula  Monachorum ,  ed.  Wolfflin,  1895.  Cp.  Hallam’s  Lit.  of 
Europe ,  i  4;  Harnack’s  Monchtum ,  42L  Norden,  p.  665,  note. 

2  Mabillon’s  Acta  Sanctorum  Ordinis  S.  Benedicti ,  i  290. 

3  Plans  showing  site  of  library  in  J.  W.  Clark’s  Care  of  Books,  pp.  1 1 5  f . 

4  Gregorii  Dialogi ,  ii  17  (with  Preface  of  Mabillon,  l.c.). 

5  ib.  ii  15;  Mrs  Jameson’s  Monastic  Orders,  i  7 — 13,  and  Milman’s  Lat. 
Christianity,  ii  80 — 96.  Cp.  Hodgkin’s  Italy  and  her  Invaders ,  iv  462 — 498. 

s.  17 


258 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


that  the  closing  years  of  the  founder’s  life  were  brightened  with  a 
vision  of  the  splendid  future  which  awaited  his  Order.  Such  at 
least  was  the  interpretation  which  tradition  assigned  to  the  story 
of  his  once  seeing  the  darkness  of  the  dawn  suddenly  dispelled 
by  a  light  more  dazzling  than  that  of  day1.  The  fulfilment  of  his 
hopes,  so  far  as  it  is  connected  with  our  immediate  subject,  will 
attract  our  attention  at  later  points  in  this  work. 

The  last  of  the  grammarians  from  whom  Cassiodorus  compiled 
his  treatise  De  Orthogrciphia  was  Priscian,  qui 

Priscian 

nostro  tempore  Constantinopoli  doctor  fuit  (c.  12). 
Almost  all  that  is  known  of  his  date  is  that  he  composed  (about 
512)  a  poetic  panegyric  on  Anastasius,  emperor  of  the  East  from 
491  to  5182;  and  that  a  transcript  of  his  great  work  on  grammar 
was  completed  at  Constantinople  by  one  of  his  pupils,  the 
calligrapher  Theodorus,  in  5  26-7 3.  Three  of  his  minor  works, 
(1)  on  numerals,  weights,  and  measures,  (2)  on  the  metres  of 
Terence,  and  (3)  some  rhetorical  exercises,  are  almost  entirely 
derived  from  Greek  originals.  They  were  dedicated  to  Sym- 
machus  (possibly  the  consul  of  485),  who  was  known  to  the 
author  by  his  high  repute  before  he  met  him  (probably  on  some 
occasion,  otherwise  unknown,  when  Symmachus  visited  Constan¬ 
tinople).  Priscian  was  a  native  of  Caesarea  in  Mauretania,  and 
there  is  no  proof  that  he  ever  lived  in  Rome.  His  Grammar  is 
divided  into  xvm  books ;  1 — xvi  on  Accidence ;  xvn  and  xvm 
on  Syntax.  In  the  dedication  he  states  that  he  proposes  to 
translate  from  the  Greek  of  Apollonius  (Dyscolus)  and  Herodian ; 
but  that  his  work  would  be  of  small  extent  compared  with  the 
spatiosa  volumina  of  the  former  and  the  pelagus  of  the  latter.  He 
follows  Apollonius  very  closely,  as  may  be  seen  from  those 
portions  of  his  work  in  which  the  corresponding  books  of 
Apollonius  are  almost  completely  preserved,  viz.  the  parts  on  the 
Pronoun,  Adverb,  and  Conjunction,  and  on  Syntax.  Most  of 
Priscian’s  Latin  learning  comes  from  Flavius  Caper ;  much  is  also 

1  Gregorii  Dicilogi,  ii  34;  Montalembert,  l.c .,  i  435  f. 

2  Bahrens,  Poet.  Lai.  Min.  v  264. 

3  ...scripsi  artem  Prisciani  eloquentissimi  grammatici  doctoris  mei  manu 
mea  in  urbe  Roma  ( v.l .  Romana)  Constantinopoli. ..Olybrio  v.  c.  consule,  i.e. 
Mavortio  Olybrio,  cons.  526-7  (Jahn,  Sacks.  Berichte ,  1851,  p.  354). 


XIII.] 


PRISCIAN. 


259 


due  to  Charisius,  Diomedes,  Donatus  (with  Servius  on  Donatus), 
and  Probus ;  and  to  an  earlier  list  of  grammatical  examples  from 
Cicero.  The  work  is  remarkably  rich  in  quotations  from  Cicero 
and  Sallust ;  also  from  Plautus,  Terence,  Virgil,  Horace,  Ovid, 
Lucan,  Persius,  Statius  and  Juvenal.  There  are  fewer  from  Cato, 
and  from  Accius,  Ennius  and  Lucretius ;  very  few  from  Catullus 
and  Propertius,  Caesar,  and  the  elder  Pliny ;  and  none  from 
Tibullus  and  Tacitus.  The  Greek  examples  are  mainly  from 
Homer,  Plato,  Isocrates  and  Demosthenes.  His  own  style  is 
very  prolix,  and  he  seems  to  have  little  consciousness  of  the 
importance  of  the  order  of  words  in  Latin  prose.  His  fame  in 
after  times  was  great.  His  pupil,  Eutyches,  calls  him  ‘  Romanae 
lumen  facundiae’  and  ‘  communis... hominum  praeceptor’.  A  ms 
of  Priscian  had  reached  England  in  the  life  of  Aldhelm  (d.  709). 
He  is  quoted  by  Bede,  and  is  described  as  ‘  Latinae  eloquentiae 
decus  ’  by  Alcuin,  who  mentions  his  name  in  the  list  of  the 
library  at  York.  He  is  copied  in  a  grammatical  treatise  by 
Alcuin’s  pupil,  Hrabanus  Maurus,  and  minutely  studied  by  the 
latter’s  pupil,  Servatus  Lupus  (d.  862).  His  grammar  was  one  of 
the  great  text-books  of  the  Middle  Ages  and  is  accordingly  still 
represented  by  more  than  1000  mss.  Early  in  the  Renaissance, 
in  a  poem  on  the  reported  death  of  Petrarch,  Priscian  appears  as 
the  foremost  representative  of  Grammar  (1343) 1  m,  and,  after  the 
middle  of  the  fourteenth  century,  it  was  either  Priscian  or  Donatus 
whose  portrait  was  placed  beneath  the  personification  of  Grammar 
among  the  Seven  Earthly  Sciences  in  the  chapter-house  (after¬ 
wards  called  the  Spanish  chapel)  of  Santa  Maria  Novella  at 
Florence,  while  among  the  representatives  of  the  Seven  Heavenly 
Sciences,  the  central  figure  has  sometimes  been  identified  as 
Boethius  ( c .  1355). 

It  was  only  two  years  after  Boethius  was  consul  in  Rome 

(510)  that  Priscian  eulogised  an  emperor  of  the  East  in  Con¬ 
stantinople  (512).  Between  these  dates  is  the  death  of  Clovis 

(51 1) ,  for  whom  Boethius  had  some  seven  or  eight  years  previously 

1  Antonio  Beccaria,  Grammatica  era  prima  in  questo  pianto  |  E  con  lei 
Pnsciano  (Priscian,  1  xxxi  Hertz). — Best  ed.  of  Priscian,  that  of  Hertz  (with 
minor  works  by  Keil),  1855 — 9.  Cp.  Teuffel,  §  481;  and  Jeep’s  Redetheile , 

89—97. 


17 — 2 


26o 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP.  XIII. 


selected  a  skilled  harper  at  the  request  of  Theodoric’s  minister, 
Cassiodorus.  Two  years  after  the  death  of  Boethius  (524)  falls 
the  death  of  Theodoric  (526),  and  within  a  year  of  that  event  the 
copy  of  Priscian’s  Grammar,  from  which  all  our  extant  mss  are 
ultimately  descended,  was  being  transcribed  in  Constantinople. 
The  close  of  the  Roman  age  is  marked  by  the  death  of  Boethius ; 
and  the  fact  that  the  great  work  of  Priscian  was  copied  by  his 
pupil,  not  in  Rome,  but  in  Constantinople,  foreshadows  the 
beginning  of  the  Byzantine  age  of  scholarship.  Two  years  after 
the  archetype  of  Priscian  had  been  transcribed,  the  Schools  of 
Athens  were  closed  in  the  early  part  of  the  reign  of  Justinian, 
probably  at  the  very  time  when  in  the  West  the  monastery  of 
Monte  Cassino  was  rising  above  the  ruins  of  the  altar  of  Apollo. 
As  we  pass  in  fancy  from  the  ruins  of  Apollo’s  altar  to  the 
Castle  Hill  that  looks  down  on  the  Vivarian  monastery  and  the 
bay  of  Squillace,  and  think  of  Cassiodorus  spending  the  last 
thirty-three  years  of  his  life  among  his  monks,  training  them  to 
become  careful  copyists,  and  closing  the  latest  work  of  his  long 
life  by  making  extracts  for  their  benefit  from  the  pages  of  Priscian, 
we  feel  that  we  have  left  the  Roman  age  behind  us,  and  that  we 
are  already  standing  within  the  confines  of  the  Middle  Ages. 


ci  hoi  et'er-  Natru  fer^oe 
acquaepmn)umpcceo- 
ci>eaiM;‘cquicLpei>eiM>o 

rnoixcu  ouj  rfernperMN 


From  the  Biblical  Commentary  of  Monte  Cassino 
written  before  569  B.c. 

(E.  M.  Thompson’s  Palaeography ,  p.  202.) 


BOOK  IV 


GREEK  SCHOLARSHIP  IN  THE  ROMAN  AGE 


Vos  exemplaria  Graeca 
Nocturna  versate  manu ,  versate  diurna. 

Horace,  Ars  Po'etica ,  268. 

6  koP  77/A  as  T^/ooVos.  ..a7T€8a)K€  Trj  pccv  apyaia  kcu  crwcfipovL  prjTopiKrj 

TT)V  SlKOLLOLV  TipCtjv,  TjV  KCU  7 TpOTtpOV  Kd\(J)<S  aTToXafitLV' . . .  CUT  Id  8’ 

ot/xat  kcu  apxV  T77?  TocravTr]' »  /Aera/JoA^s  eyeVero  77  TravTWj/  Kparovcra 
'P07/A77. 

Dionysius  Halicarnassensis,  Zte  Oratoribus  Antiquis,  c.  2 — 3. 


77/Aets  ov  717309  ra  8t77/AapT77/A€Va  dcfropup-ev,  aAAa  717309  ra  8oki/aw- 
raTa  7W  ap^aiW. 


Phrynichus,  Eclogae  Dedicatio. 


Conspectus  of  Greek  Literature,  &c.,  i — 300  A.D. 


Roman 

Historians, 

Orators, 

Scholars, 

Other  Writers 

Emperors 

Poets 

Biographers, 

Geographers 

Rhetoricians 

Critics,  &c. 

of  Prose 

A.D. 

Theodorus  of 

Theon 

14  Tiberius 

Gadara 

Seleucus 

c.  24  d.  Strabo 

37  Caligula 

Philippus  of 

Apion 

4oPhiloJudaeus 

41  Claudius 

Thessalonica 

Heliodorus 

(b.  20 B.c.)  visits 

50  Pamphilus 

Rome 

Pamphila 

54  Nero 

Erotianus 

Lucillius 

63  Josephus 

37— c.  98 

68  Galba 

69  Otho 

69  Vitellius 

69  Vespasian 

75  Nicetes  of 

Epaphroditus 

79  Titus 

Plutarch 

Smyrna 

81  Domitian 

c.  46 — c.  125 

Dio  Chrysostom 

Dioscorides 

96  Nerva 

c.  40 — c.  1 14 

?  Anonymus 

98  Trajan 

\ 

nepl  vxliovs 

1  r\n 

-LUU 

117  Hadrian 

Dionysius 

Herenn.  Philon 

Favorinus 

no  Aspasius 

Periegetes 

c.  64 — c.  141 

Alexander 

Ael.  Dionysius 

Mesomedes 

Phlegon 

Aelius  Theon 

Nicanor 

7'  -'<•* 

KeVvaxiyTacticus 

Apollonius 

138  Antoninus 

Arrian 

Dyscolus 

Pius 

Jl.  130— 171 

151  Albinus 

. 

143  Herodes 

Lucian 

* 

160  Appian 

Atticus  103 — 

c.  125 — c.  192 

179 

Herodian 

Alciphron 

161  M.  Aurelius 

Pausanias, 

Galen 

(idi-9  L.  Verus) 

169  Oppian, 

161-9  Polyae- 

A  tticista 

131 — 201 

180  Commodus 

Halieutica 

nus,  Poliorce - 

Demetrius 

Hephaestion 

175  Atticus 

193  Pertinax 

tica 

176  Aristides 

Harpocration 

Numenius 

193  Julianus 

Ptolemaeus 

129 — c.  189 

180  Phrynichus 

Sextus  Empiri- 

icn  Septimius 

Babrius 

173  Pausanias 

i8q  Maximus 

180  Pollux 

cus 

Severus 

Tyrius 

Clemens  Alex- 

Hermogenes 

Alexander 

andrinus 

Aphrodisiensis 

c.  160 — c.  215 

21 1  Caracalla 

21 1  Pseudo-Op- 

211-21  DionCas- 

207  Pseudo- 

Xenophon  Eph. 

217  Macrinus 

pian,  Cynege- 

sius 

215  Philostra- 

Dositheus 

Diogenes  ] 

218  Ela^abalus 

tica 

c.  155—230-40 

tus  I,  Lives  of 

Laertius 

222  Alexander 

the  Sophists , 

(Ammonius  j 

Severus 

221  Julius  Afri- 

b.  c.  170,  Jl. 

Saccas) 

235  Maximin 

canus 

215-45 

203  Origen  I 

238  Gordian  I, II 

235  Apsines 

185—254 

„  fPupienus 

c.  190 — 250 

222  Aelian 

23°  )_Balbinus 

235  Philostra- 

c.  170 — 230 

238  Gordian  III 

tus  II,  Heroi - 

228  Athenaeus 

244  Philippus 

cus  and  earlier 

Jl.  180 — 230 

249  Decius 

250  Herodian 

Eikoties,  b.  c. 

244  Plotinus 

251  Gallus 

c.  165— c.  255 

190 

204 — 270 

253  Aemilianus 

260  Minucianus 

253  Valerian  & 

Gallienus 

Longinus 

262  Porphyry 

268  Claudius  11 

c.  220 — 273 

233—  c.  301-5 

270  Aurelian 

275  Tacitus 

273  Menander 

276  Florianus 

276  Probus 

Timaeus 

282  Carus 

283  Carinus  & 

Aristides 

Numerian 

Quintilianus 

Heliodorus 

284  Diocletian 

(286  Maximian) 

CHAPTER  XIV. 


ROMAN  STUDY  OF  GREEK  BETWEEN  164  B.C.  AND  14  A.D. 


Our  survey  of  Latin  Scholarship  in  the  Roman  age  began 
with  some  account  of  Greek  influence  in  Roman  Literature 
before  the  eventful  visit  of  Crates  of  Mallos  (168  b.c.),  and  also 
touched  upon  the  Greek  sources  of  Roman  drama  shortly  after, 
as  well  as  before,  that  date  (p.  167).  At  the  outset  of  a  similar 
survey  of  Greek  Scholarship  in  the  same  age,  we  propose  to 
resume  that  account  by  dealing  briefly  with  the  Roman  study  of 
Greek  between  164  b.c.  and  the  death  of  Augustus  in  14  a.d. 

The  Roman  study  of  Greek  is  strikingly  exemplified  by  the 
fact  that,  about  164  b.c.,  Tiberius  Sempronius  Roman 
Gracchus 1  addressed  the  Rhodians  in  a  Greek  study  of  Greek 
speech  that  was  still  extant  in  the  time  of  Cicero  164  b.c.  and 
(. Brutus ,  79).  Greek  influence  was  stoutly  re-  r4  As¬ 
sisted  by  the  elder  Cato  (234-149),  and  it  was  probably  at  his 
instance  that  the  Greek  philosophers  and  rhetoricians  were 
expelled  from  Rome  in  161.  The  philosophers 
returned  in  155  in  the  persons  of  the  Academic  elJ,frto  the 
Carneades,  the  Peripatetic  Critolaus,  and  the  Stoic 
Diogenes,  who  aroused  the  interest  of  the  young  Romans,  and 
the  indignation  of  the  aged  Cato,  by  the  sophistry  of  the  argu¬ 
ments  with  which  they  defended  the  seizure  of  Oropus  by  Athens 
(Plut.  Cato,  i  22).  In  his  old  age  Cato  warned  his  son  against 
Greek  physicians  and  also  against  Greek  literature,  adding  that 
the  latter  was  worthy  of  inspection  but  not  of  study  (Plin.  N.  H. 
xxix  14).  He  is  said  to  have  learnt  Greek  late  in  life  (Cic.  De 
Sen.  26),  and  to  have  derived  some  advantage,  as  an  orator ,  from 

1  The  father  of  the  Gracchi. 


264 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


the  reading  of  Thucydides  and  still  more  from  that  of  Demo¬ 
sthenes;  but  Plutarch,  in  recording  this  tradition,  is  careful  to  add 
that,  even  as  a  writer,  Cato  showed  the  influence  of  Greek 
literature,  and  that  many  of  his  apophthegms  were  translated 
from  Greek  {Cato  i  2).  Toward  the  end  of  his  days,  as  he 
looked  forward  to  the  conquest  of  Carthage  by  the  younger  Scipio, 
he  expressed  his  sense  of  the  contrast  between  that  leader  and  the 
rest  of  the  Roman  generals  by  quoting  a  line  from  Homer : — otos 
7T€7rvvTai,  tol  Se  ovaat.  aL(r<Tovai  ( ib .  27).  Among  the  Greek  friends 
of  the  younger  Scipio  were  the  Stoic  Panaetius  and  the  future 
historian  Polybius,  who,  while  Carthage  was  in  flames,  saw  his 
former  pupil  musing  on  the  fate  of  Empires,  and  heard  him 
murmuring  the  lines  of  the  Iliad : — ecro-crai  rj/Aa p  orav  ttot  oXoUXy 
TAios  iprj  kolL  npta/xos  xai.  Xao5  iv/ifxeX too  IlpidfAOLO.  The  fall  of 
Corinth,  in  the  same  year  as  that  of  Carthage  (146),  made  Rome 
the  master  of  the  Hellenic  world ;  but  Greece,  though  conquered 
in  arms,  continued  victorious  in  the  field  of  letters  :  Graecia  capta 
ferum  victorem  ceperat,  is  more  true  than  cepit  (Horace,  Ep.  11  i 
156).  A  native  of  Carthage,  who  became  a  pupil  of  Carneades 
and  took  the  name  of  Clitomachus,  was  on  intimate  terms  with 
the  Roman  historian,  A.  Postumius  Albinus,  and  with  the  friend 
of  Scipio  and  Laelius,  the  great  satirist  Lucilius. 
Lucilius  himself,  while  he  banters  the  Roman 
Epicurean,  Titus  Albucius,  on  his  fancy  for  being  saluted  in 
Greek,  is  (like  the  rest  of  the  Scipionic  circle)  himself  familiar 
with  the  masterpieces  of  Greek  literature.  Gaius 
Acilius,  who  had  interpreted  to  the  Senate  the 
speeches  of  the  Greek  envoys  of  155,  produced  in 
142  a  Greek  history  of  Rome;  and  Greek  was  the 
language  of  another  lost  history,  written  by  the  son 
of  the  elder  Africanus.  P.  Licinius  Crassus  Dives  Mucianus, 
consul  in  13 1,  was  so  familiar  with  Greek,  that  as  governor  of 
Asia  he  delivered  his  decisions  either  in  ordinary  Greek  or,  if  the 
case  required,  in  any  of  the  four  dialects  of  that  language  (Quint. 

xi  2,  50).  The  great  work  of  Varro  on  the  Latin 
language,  finished  before  Cicero’s  death  in  43  b.c., 
owed  much  to  the  grammatical  writings  of  the  Stoics  and  the 
Alexandrian  critics,  and  even  derived  its  definition  of  grammar 


Lucilius 


Histories 
of  Rome 
written  by 
Romans  in 
Greek 


Varro 


XIV.] 


ROMAN  STUDY  OF  GREEK. 


265 


from  that  of  Dionysius  Thrax1.  From  the  Greek  Cynic,  Menippus 
of  Gadara  (c.  250  b.c.),  Varro  adopted  a  new  type  of  satirical 
composition  in  which  verse  was  blended  with  prose,  and  the 
700  portraits  of  famous  men  collected  in  his  Imagines  were 
equally  divided  between  Romans  and  Greeks. 

Cicero  began  his  study  of  Greek  philosophy  under  the  Epicu¬ 
rean  Phaedrus,  but  was  soon  attracted  more  strongly  cicero 
to  the  Stoic  Diodotus  (who  ended  his  days  as  an  in¬ 
mate  of  Cicero’s  house)  and  to  the  Academic  Philo,  the  pupil  of 
Clitomachus.  In  resuming  and  completing  his  education  in  Greece 
(79-77  b.c.),  he  studied  at  Athens  the  Stoicised  Academic  philo¬ 
sophy  of  Antiochus  of  Ascalon;  and  rhetoric,  partly  at  Athens,  but 
mainly  at  Rhodes,  where  he  formed  a  close  friendship  with  the  Stoic 
Poseidonius.  So  deeply  imbued  was  he  with  Greek  learning  that, 
on  his  return  to  Rome,  he  was  even  reproached  as  ‘  a  Greek  and 
a  pedant’  (Plut.  Cic.  5).  His  vague  and  distant  interest  in  Greek 
art  is  indicated  in  the  Fourth  Verrine  (69  b.c.);  his  closer  interest 
in  Greek  literature,  in  the  Pro  Archia  (62  b.c.);  and  his  familiarity 
with  the  Paradoxes  of  the  Stoics,  in  the  work  of  that  name,  and  in 
the  pro  Murena.  About  60  b.c.  we  find  him  enthusiastically 
studying  Dicaearchus  (ad  Att.  ii  2)  and  Theophrastus  (ii  7,  4 ;  i 
16,  3),  and  writing  historical  memoirs  in  the  manner  of  Theo- 
pompus  (ii  6,  2).  Poseidonius  has  apparently  suggested  the 
opening  passage  in  the  earliest  of  his  rhetorical  treatises,  the  De 
Inventione 2,  while  other  portions  are  borrowed  from  Hermagoras. 
A  far  higher  degree  of  originality  is  shown  in  his  maturer  works, 
the  De  Oratore  (55  b.c.)  and  the  Brutus  (46),  but  the  former  of 
these  gives  proof  of  his  familiarity  with  Greek  philosophy,  while 
the  Orator  (46),  in  which  he  attacks  the  narrow  Atticists  of  the 
day,  is  inspired  in  part  by  Plato,  Isocrates,  Demosthenes,  Aris¬ 
totle  and  Theophrastus3.  The  De  Optimo  Genere  Oratorum  is  a 

\ 

1  Varro,  frag.  91,  grammatica  est  scientia  eorum  quae  a  poetis  historicis 
oratoribusque  dicuntur  ex  parte  maiore ;  p.  8  supra.  Varro  supplies  us  with 
the  earliest  example  of  the  use  of  lyricus  in  Latin,  if  Wilmanns,  De  Varronis 
Libris  Grammaticis ,  p.  187,  is  right  in  assigning  to  Varro  the  passage  in  Serv. 
de  accentibus,  17,  ‘Dionysius...Aristarchi  discipulus,  cognomento  Thrax,  domo 
Alexandrinus,  qui  Rhodi  docuit,  lyi'icorum  poetarum  longe  studiosissimus...’ 

2  Philippson  in  Neue Jahrb.  133,  p.  417. 

3  Cp.  the  present  writer’s  ed.,  pp.  lxvii — lxxi. 


266 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


short  preface  to  Cicero’s  lost  translation  of  the  speeches  of 
Aeschines  and  Demosthenes  ‘On  the  Crown’.  He  also  translated 
the  Oeconomicus  of  Xenophon,  and  the  Protagoras  and  Timaeus 
of  Plato,  part  of  this  last  being  still  extant.  His  Topica ,  written 
on  board  ship  without  books  (in  July,  44),  is  not  really  a  transla¬ 
tion  of  the  corresponding  work  of  Aristotle.  In  connexion  with 
his  philosophical  dialogues,  he  was  specially  studying  Aristotle  in 
54  b.c.  1  The  titles  of  his  earliest  philosophic  writings,  the  De 
Republica  (54)  and  the  De  Legibus  (52),  are  suggested  to  him  by 
Plato,  and  the  Dreatn  of  Scipio ,  related  in  the  last  book  of  the 
former,  is  the  counterpart  of  the  Vision  of  Er  at  the  close  of  the 
Republic.  In  51  b.c.  he  revisited  Athens  (staying  with  Aristus, 
the  brother  of  Antiochus),  and  succeeded  in  preventing  the 
destruction  of  the  house  of  Epicurus  by  the  patron  of  the  great 
Epicurean  poet  Lucretius.  At  Mitylene  he  met  the  Peripatetic 
Cratippus ;  and,  on  his  return  from  Cilicia,  he  once  more  stayed 
with  Aristus  at  Athens  (49).  During  the  Civil  War  we  find  him 
appropriately  studying  Demetrius  Magnes,  On  Concord.  In  the 
fourth  and  fifth  books  of  the  De  Finibus ,  and  in  the  Academica 
(45),  his  main  authority  is  Antiochus.  In  the  Tusculan  Disputa¬ 
tions  (44)  he  follows  either  Philo  or  Poseidonius,  Panaetius  and 
Antiochus.  A  letter  to  Atticus  (xiii  32,  2)  implies  that,  in  con¬ 
nexion  with  this  work,  he  studied  certain  treatises  of  Dicaearchus. 
In  the  first  book  of  the  De  Natura  Deorum  (44),  he  probably 
follows  the  Epicurean  Zeno;  certainly  Poseidonius  (i  §  123)  and 
possibly  Philodemus ;  in  the  second,  Poseidonius  (amongst 
others) ;  and  in  the  third,  certainly  Clitomachus.  The  last  two 
are  among  the  sources  of  the  De  Divinatione  (44),  while  §§  87 — 89 
of  the  second  book  are,  according  to  Cicero  himself,  taken  from 
Panaetius.  In  the  De  Senectute  (44)  he  is  perhaps  inspired  by 
the  Peripatetic  Aristo  of  Ceos;  in  the  De  Amicitia  (44)  his  main 
authority  is  Theophrastus.  The  first  two  books  of  the  De  Officiis 
(44)  are  confessedly  founded  on  Panaetius,  with  additions  from 
Poseidonius,  and  possibly  from  Athenodorus  Calvus,  who  certainly 
supplied  Cicero  with  the  general  scheme  of  the  third  book  {ad 
Att.  xvi  11,  4  and  14,  4).  Even  in  his  lost  Consolatio  in  memory 


1  ad  Quint,  iii  5  and  6. 


XIV.] 


ROMAN  STUDY  OF  GREEK. 


267 


of  Tullia,  he  closely  followed  Crantor  nepl  TrevOovs,  while  his  lost 
Hortensius  was  modelled  on  the  Protrepticus  of  Aristotle  and  of 
Poseidonius1.  Writing  to  Atticus  (xii  52,  3)  in  45  b.c.,  the  year 
in  which  he  composed  the  De  Finibus  and  the  Academica,  he 
frankly  disclaims  originality,  calling  the  works  on  which  he  was 
then  engaged  merely  ‘  copies  ’ : — ayroypacfia  sunt :  minore  labore 
jiunt ;  verba  tantum  affero ,  quibus  abundo.  Early  in  life  he  had 
translated  into  Latin  verse  the  astronomical  poem  of  Aratus,  and 
in  60  b.c.  had  lavished  all  the  resources  of  Greek  rhetoric  on  a 
memoir  of  his  consulship,  which  excited  the  admiration  and  the 
despair  of  Poseidonius,  who  had  been  requested  to  write  on  the 
same  subject  (ad  Att.  i  19,  10  ;  ii  1,  1).  In  his  Letters ,  especially 
in  those  addressed  to  a  Greek  scholar  like  Atticus,  he  readily 
resorts  to  Greek.  However  inadequate  and  inaccurate  may  have 
been  his  transcripts  from  Greek  philosophical  texts,  he  deserves 
the  credit  of  having  enlarged  the  vocabulary  of  Latin  and  of  the 
modern  languages  derived  therefrom,  by  his  admirably  adequate 
renderings  of  Greek  philosophical  terms2.  cTSos,  iroiory and 
TroaoTrjs  have  attained  ‘  a  much  longer  life  and  a  far  more 
extended  application  ’  in  Cicero’s  species ,  qualitas  and  quantitas , 
and  their  modern  derivatives.  His  renderings  of  the  later  Greek 
writers  like  Epicurus,  Chrysippus  and  Philodemus  are  in  point  of 
style  better  than  the  originals.  In  his  opinion  as  to  the  com¬ 
parative  merits  of  Greek  and  Latin  he  is  not*  always  consistent. 
At  one  time  ‘he  gives  to  Greek  the  preference  over  Latin  [ Tusc . 
ii  35])  at  another  to  Latin  over  Greek  [L)e  Fin.  i  10] ;  in  reading 
Sophocles  or  Plato  he  would  acknowledge  their  unrivalled  ex¬ 
cellence  ;  in  translating  Panaetius  or  Philodemus  he  would  feel 
his  own  immeasurable  superiority’3. 

1  For  further  details  on  the  Greek  authorities  followed  by  Cicero  in  his 
philosophical  works,  cp.  Hirzel’s  Untersuchungen ,  1877—83  ;  Thiaucourt’s 
Essai,  1885;  Schanz,  §§  158 — 172;  and  the  current  editions  of  the  several 
works,  esp.  Dr  Reid’s  Academica ,  pp.  1 — 9,  and  Prof.  J.  B.  Mayor’s  De  Nat. 
Deorum ,  i  p.  xlii  f. 

2  Cp.  Bernhardt,  De  Cicerone  Graecae philosophiae  interprete ,  Berlin,  1865; 
and  Clavel,  De  Cicerone  Graecorum  interprete ,  Paris,  1868  (in  part  a  reproduc¬ 
tion  of  H.  Estienne’s  Ciceronianum  Lexicon  Graeco- latinum,  1557). 

3  Munro’s  Lucretius ,  Introd.  p.  306 — 73. 


268 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Lucretius 


Cicero’s  early  translation  of  Aratus  is  repeatedly  imitated  by 
an  incomparably  greater  poet,  Lucretius  (97- 
53  B.C.).  In  massive  and  majestic  verse  that  poet 
unfolds  in  fairly  lucid  form  his  exposition  of  the  physical  system 
of  Epicurus,  the  writer  of  £  a  harsh  jargon  that  does  not  deserve 
to  be  called  a  style’1.  The  Roman  poet  has  carefully  studied 
Democritus,  Anaxagoras  and  Heraclitus.  Incidentally  he  borrows 
from  Empedocles,  and  perhaps  from  Poseidonius  (v) ;  also  from 
Thucydides,  whom  he  repeatedly  misrepresents,  and  once  abandons 
for  Hippocrates  (vi  1180-95).  He  translates  Homer  (ii  24,  324; 
iii  21,  1000,  1025;  v  905  f.;  vi  971);  and  imitates  Hesiod  (v 
1289),  and  Euripides  (i  101;  ii  991 — 1006;  v  805).  In  one 
passage  only  he  gives  a  close  rendering  of  Antipater  of  Sidon  (iv 
18 1  f),  an  epigrammatist  of  the  second  half  of  the  second  century, 
whose  versification  is  in  strict  accord  with  the  best  Alexandrian 
models.  In  this  isolated  and  tacit  rendering  of  a  minor  Alex¬ 
andrian  poet,  and  in  his  openly  avowed  admiration  for  Ennius  (i 
1 1 7),  Lucretius  stands  in  strong  contrast  with  the  poets  of  the 
new  school,  the  po'etae  novi  (Cic.  Orator ,  16 1)  or 
vecoTepoL  (ad  A  tt.  vii  2,  1),  the  cant  ores  Euphoriotiis , 
who  regarded  the  grand  old  poet  with  contempt 
(Tusc.  iii  45).  Discarding  the  drama  and  the  ampler  forms  of 
epic  poetry,  this  new  school  aimed  at  reproducing  the  legendary 
lore  and  the  artificial  versification  of  the  ‘Alexandrian’  poets  with 
their  minor  epics,  and  their  amatory,  satirical  or  mythological 
elegies  and  epigrams.  Its  leaders  were  Valerius  Cato  and  Calvus 
(82-47),  and  its  greatest  poet  was  Catullus  (84-54), 
whose  Alexandrian  affinities  are  especially  marked 
in  his  Coma  Berenices,  a  close  translation  of  Callimachus,  in  his 
Peleus  and  Thetis ,  and  in  the  elegiacs  addressed  to  M’.  Allius, 
with  their  many  examples  of  the  art  of  mythological  digression. 
His  study  of  earlier  Greek  models  is  shown  in  his  rendering  of  an 
ode  of  Sappho,  and  in  his  adoption  of  her  most  characteristic 
metre.  Among  his  companions  in  Bithynia  (57- 
6  b.c.)  was  C.  Helvius  Cinna,  who  there  obtained 
a  copy  of  Aratus2 ;  it  was  apparently  Parthenius  of  Nicaea  whom 

1  Munro,  u.  s.,  p.  306. 

2  Isidore,  vi  12  (Merry’s  Fragments  of  Roman  Poetry ,  p.  254). 


Cantores 

Euphorionis 


Catullus 


Cinna 


XIV.] 


ROMAN  STUDY  OF  GREEK. 


269 


Varro 

Atacinus 


he  imitated  in  two  elaborate  poems  which  were  so  obscure  as  to 
need  a  scholiast.  Varro  Atacinus  (born  in  82  b.c.), 
who  began  his  career  with  an  epic  on  Caesar’s 
conquest  of  the  Sequani,  and  with  satires  lightly 
esteemed  by  Horace  {Sat.  i  10,  46),  at  the  age  of  35  threw 
himself  with  great  enthusiasm  into  the  study  of  Greek  literature, 
producing  a  geographical  poem  apparently  in  imitation  of  Alex¬ 
ander  of  Ephesus,  Prognostics  after  the  model  of  Aratus,  and 
a  Latin  version  of  the  Argonautics  of  Apollonius  Rhodius.  His 
skill  as  a  translator  is  proved  by  his  rendering  of  the  following 
lines  (iii  749) : — 


otide  kvvuv  uXa/c-fy  £t  ava  7 ttoKlv,  ol>  9poos  rjev 
r)XV€ls'  <uy V  /xeXaLvo/j.ti'rju  2 6p<pvr]v. 

‘  Desierant  latrare  canes  urbesque  silebant ; 

Omnia  noctis  erant  placida  composta  quiete’. 

These  two  lines  are  preserved  by  the  elder  Seneca  (p.  313  K), 
who  records  the  fact  that  Ovid  wanted  to  strike  out  the  last 
three  words ;  he  also  refers  to  the  still  finer  treatment  of  the 
same  theme  in  Virgil  {Aen.  viii  26  f). 

Turning  from  the  poets  to  the  historians  of  the  last  few 
decades  of  the  Republic,  we  note  that  Caesar 

.  .  Caesar. 

(100-44),  like  Cicero,  studied  Rhetoric  at  Rhodes;  Nepos. 

ust 

and  that,  in  his  account  of  the  early  state  of  Gaul, 
he  is  probably  following  the  Rhodian  Poseidonius.  Cornelius 
Nepos  may  have  modelled  on  Apollodorus  the  great  chronological 
work  mentioned  in  the  dedication  of  the  poems  of  Catullus 
(52  b.c.)  ;  he  also  wrote  lives  of  ‘grammarians’,  which  have  un¬ 
happily  perished.  Sallust  (86 — 35-4),  in  the  lengthy  introductions 
to  his  ‘Catiline’  and  ‘Jugurtha’,  and  in  the  Speeches  and  almost 
all  the  Letters  interspersed  in  those  works,  is  an  imitator  of 
Thucydides,  whom  he  further  resembles  in  the  brevity  and  con¬ 
ciseness  of  his  style. 

Among  the  poets  of  the  Augustan  age  Virgil  (70 — 19  b.c.) 
was  early  directed  by  Asinius  Pollio  to  the  study 

...  Virgil 

of  Theocritus,  whom  he  imitates  in  at  least  17 

passages  of  his  Eclogues \  The  lines  in  Eclogue  viii  37 — 41, 


1  For  details  see  Kennedy’s  notes,  Conington’s  Introduction ,  Sellar’s 
Virgil  c.  IV  i,  or  Schanz,  §  224. 


270 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


regarded  by  Voltaire  as  the  most  beautiful  passage  in  Virgil,  and 
by  Macaulay  as  £the  finest  lines  in  the  Latin  language’,  are  simply 
translated,  and  in  one  particular  mistranslated,  from  Theocritus 
(xi  25  f;  ii  82)  *,  whose  meaning  is  also  missed  when  iravTa 
S’  cWAAa  yevocTo  is  rendered  omnia  vel  medium  fiant  mare 
{Eel.  viii  58).  In  general,  however,  his  imitations  and  adapta¬ 
tions  are  admirably  true  to  his  original.  In  the  Georgies  he 
borrows  from  Homer  and  Hesiod,  and  from  ‘Alexandrian’  poets 
such  as  Aratus,  Apollonius  Rhodius,  Callimachus,  Theocritus, 
Bion,  Nicander2,  and  Parthenius3.  The  passage  on  the  zones 
(i  233)  came  from  the  Hermes  of  Eratosthenes4;  but  there  is 
no  warrant  for  the  statement  of  Servius  (on  i  43)  that  Virgil 
borrowed  largely  from  the  closing  passage  on  agriculture  in  the 
Oeconomicus  of  Xenophon.  The  first  half  of  the  Aeneid  is  mainly 
founded  on  the  Odyssey ,  and  the  second  on  the  Iliad.  The 
account  of  the  Fall  of  Troy  is  partly  inspired  by  the  cyclic  poet, 
Pisander5;  the  passion  of  Dido  by  that  of  Medea  in  Apollonius 
Rhodius6;  the  description  of  Camilla  possibly  by  that  of  Pen- 
thesilea  in  the  lost  Aethiopis  of  Arctinus.  Homer  and  Apollonius 
are  the  source  of  not  a  few  of  the  similes ;  the  happy  comparison 
suggested  by  the  play  of  light  reflected  on  the  ceiling  from  a 
brazen  bowl  of  water  being  derived  from  the  latter  of  these 
poets  (Aen.  viii  22,  and  Ap.  R.  iii  755).  Lastly,  there  are 
some  fine  reminiscences  of  the  great  tragic  poets  of  Greece 
(e.g.  iv  469— 473)7. 

Horace  (65-8  b.c.)  imitates  Archilochus  in  his  early  Epodes 
( Epist .  i  19,  23),  and  not  Archilochus  alone  but 

Horace  x  ' 

also  Alcaeus  and  Sappho  in  the  metres  of  his 
maturer  Odes ,  which  (in  Book  iv  2)  supply  proof  of  the  poet’s 
familiarity  with  works  of  Pindar  that  have  since  perished.  In 
his  Ars  Poetica  he  is  said  to  have  included  the  most  notable 

1  Sellar’s  Virgil ,  p.  150. 

2  Quint,  x  1,  56. 

3  Gellius,  ix  9,  3  ;  Macrobius,  v  2,  4 ;  Morsch,  De  Graecis  in  Georgicis 
a  Vergilio  expressis  (1878),  p.  39;  and  Conington’s  Introduction ,  and  on  G.  i 

437- 

4  Probus  on  Virg.  Georg,  p.  42  K. 

5  Macrobius,  v  2,  4.  6  ib.  v  17,  4. 

7  Cp.  Nettleship,  i  121 — 5,  and  Schanz,  §  233 — 4. 


XIV.] 


ROMAN  STUDY  OF  GREEK. 


271 


Gallus 


Propertius 


Ovid 


of  the  precepts  of  the  Alexandrian  critic,  Neoptolemus  of  Parium 
[supra,  p.  178),  and  he  there  insists  on  the  constant  study  of  the 
great  Greek  models  of  style  (268-9).  Poets  of  the  Alexandrian 
age  were  studied  by  Virgil’s  contemporary,  Cor¬ 
nelius  Gallus  (70 — 27  b.c.),  who  probably  imitated 
Parthenius  in  his  Lycoris ,  and  certainly  produced  translations 
and  imitations  of  Euphorion1.  The  learned  Alexandrian  type 
of  Elegy  was  abandoned  by  Tibullus  (d.  19  b.c.),  while  it  was 
closely  followed  by  Propertius  (d.  15  b.c.),  who 
openly  avows  his  veneration  for  Philetas  and 
Callimachus  (iv  1,  1  ;  v  6,  3).  The  Amo.  of  the  latter  is  the 
precursor  not  only  of  the  last  book  of  Propertius,  but  also  of 
the  Fasti  of  Ovid  (43  b.c. — 18  a.d.),  which,  in  its 
antiquarian  details  and  in  all  points  connected 
with  the  Calendar,  follows  the  Fasti  of  Verrius  Flaccus,  which 
we  possess  in  an  abridged  form  in  the  Fasti  Praenestini 2.  The 
poet  was  prevented  by  his  banishment  in  8  a.d.  from  finishing 
the  Fasti.  The  same  disaster  led  to  his  flinging  his  Metamorphoses 
into  the  fire ;  and  the  text  was  only  recovered  by  means  of 
copies  already  made  by  the  poet’s  friends.  A  Greek  poem  on 
the  same  subject  had  been  composed  by  Parthenius  under  the 
same  title,  and  by  Nicander  under  that  of  erepoiou/xcm.  In  one 
of  his  stories  of  transformation  he  gives  two  divergent  accounts 
in  different  parts  of  his  poem.  The  legend  of  the  halcyon  existed 
in  two  forms,  one  preferred  by  Nicander,  another  by  Theodorus3: 
Ovid  follows  the  former  in  xi  270,  the  latter  in  vii  401.  He 
imitates  Homer,  the  Greek  tragedians  and  Euphorion.  He  must 
have  known  the  Greek  Argument  to  the  Medea  of  Euripides,  as 
he  makes  the  same  mistake  that  is  there  made  of  connecting 
the  revival  of  the  nurses  of  Bacchus  with  the  revival  of  Aeson 
(vii  2  94)4.  It  may  here  be  suggested  that  he  probably  had  his 
attention  drawn  to  this  Argument  while  preparing  his  own  early 
play  on  Medea.  It  need  hardly  be  added  that  his  Metamorphoses 
and  his  Heroides  display  a  wide  familiarity  with  the  legendary 


1  Probus  on  Yirg.  Eel.  x  50,  and  Servius  on  Eel.  vi  72  and  x  1. 

2  Winther,  De  fastis  Verrii  Flacci  ab  Ovidio  adhibitis  (1885). 

3  Probus  on  Virg.  Georg,  p.  44  K. 

4  Robert,  Bild  und  Lied ,  p.  231,  5. 


272 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP.  XIV. 


Pompeius 

Trogus 


lore  of  Greece.  One  of  his  obscurer  works,  the  Ibis ,  is  an 
imitation  of  the  vituperative  poem  of  that  name  in  which  Calli¬ 
machus  attacked  Apollonius  Rhodius  (Ibis,  58  f). 

The  first  Universal  History  written  in  Latin,  a  work  completed 
by  Pompeius  Trogus  in  9  a.d.,  was  probably  founded 
on  that  of  the  Alexandrian  Timagenes.  It  has 
only  survived  in  the  abridgement  (probably  of  the 
third  century)  drawn  up  by  Justin,  from  which  it  may  be  inferred 
that  the  original  authorities  were  Dinon,  Ephorus,  Theopompus, 
Timaeus,  Phylarchus,  Polybius  and  possibly  Poseidonius1.  The 
Livy  way  Livy  (59  b.c. — 1 7  a.d.),  the  foremost 

historian  of  the  Augustan  age,  deals  with  his 
authorities,  may  be  best  studied  in  his  fourth  and  fifth  decades. 
While  he  there  follows  the  Roman  annalists,  Cl.  Quadrigarius 
and  Valerius  Antias,  in  his  narrative  of  exclusively  Roman  events, 
his  authority  for  the  relations  between  Rome  and  the  Hellenic 
States  is  Polybius.  He  does  not  however  copy  his  Greek  original 
too  closely,  but  apparently  aims  at  giving  his  version  a  Roman 
tone  and  a  rhetorical  colouring2.  In  the  narrative  of  the  opera¬ 
tions  closing  with  the  battle  of  Cynoscephalae  (xxx  5 — 10)  we 
can  minutely  compare  the  copy  with  the  original  (xviii  18 — 27); 
and  can  feel  (with  Munro)  ‘how  satisfying  to  the  ear  are  the 
periods  of  Livy  when  he  is  putting  into  Latin  the  heavy  and 
uncouth  clauses  of  Polybius’3. 


1  Schanz,  §§  328—330. 

2  Nissen’s  Untersuc/ucngen,  1863;  Schanz,  §  325. 

3  Lucretius,  Introd.  p.  306 3. 


CHAPTER  XV. 


GREEK  LITERARY  CRITICISM  IN  THE  FIRST  CENTURY 

OF  THE  EMPIRE. 

In  the  Augustan  age  Rome  was  in  a  preeminent  degree  a 
centre  of  attraction  to  the  leading  representatives  of  Greek 
literature.  It  was  visited  by  Strabo  about  20  b.c.,  forty  years 
before  the  completion  of  his  great  work  on  Geography  with  its 
frequent  citations  from  the  older  Greek  literature,  beginning  with 
Homer,  and  from  Alexandrian  geographers  and  astronomers,  such 
as  Eratosthenes  and  Hipparchus.  Ten  years  earlier  is  the  ap¬ 
proximate  date  of  the  publication  of  the  History  of  Diodorus, 
partly  founded  on  researches  in  the  libraries  of  Rome.  It  is  also 
the  date  of  the  arrival  in  Rome  of  Dionysius  of 
Halicarnassus,  who  lived  in  Rome  for  at  least  Haikamassuf 
22  years,  from  30  to  8  b.c.  He  had  learnt  Latin, 
and  had  become  familiar  with  Latin  literature,  before  producing 
in  the  latter  year  his  extant  work  on  Early  Roman  History.  We 
are  here,  however,  concerned  with  his  rhetorical  writings  alone. 
It  was  in  the  time  of  Dionysius  that  the  struggle  between 
Atticism  and  Asianism,  which  had  continued  from  the  days  of 
Demosthenes  to  those  of  Cicero,  was  to  all  appearance  decided 
in  favour  of  the  former :  and  Dionysius  ascribes  the  victory  of 
Atticism  to  the  commanding  influence  of  the  mistress  of  the 
world,  and  to  the  critical  as  well  as  practical  instincts  of  her 
statesmen1.  The  writings  of  Dionysius  contributed  much  towards 
the  revival  and  the  maintenance  of  a  true  standard  of  Attic  prose. 
The  exact  date  of  their  production  is  unknown ;  but  the  author’s 


S. 


1  De  Oraloribus  Antiquis ,  2 — 3. 


18 


274 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


own  references  to  certain  of  his  works  as  already  published 
occasionally  supply  data  for  an  approximate  chronological  order, 
which  will  here  be  followed  in  a  brief  notice  of  each  : — 

(1)  The  First  Letter  to  Ammaeus.  The  aim  of  this  short  treatise  is  to 
refute  the  opinion  of  an  unknown  Peripatetic,  that  Demosthenes  owed  his 
success  as  an  orator  to  the  precepts  laid  down,  in  the  Rhetoric  of  Aristotle. 
Dionysius  shows  that  twelve  important  speeches  of  Demosthenes  were  delivered 
before  the  end  of  the  Olynthian  war  (348  B.c.)  mentioned  in  the  Third  Book  of 
the  Rhetoric ;  and  twelve  others  between  the  Olynthian  war  and  339  B.c.,  i.e. 
before  the  completion  of  the  Rhetoric,  which  he  would]  even  assign  to  a  later 
date  than  the  De  Corona  (330  B.c.).  In  connexion  with  the  Olynthian  war  he 
quotes  several  important  passages  from  Philochorus.  He  also  supplies  us  with 
a  partial  chronology  of  the  life  of  Aristotle,  and  of  the  speeches  of  Demosthenes; 
but  he  includes  among  the  latter  the  Speech  on  Halonnesus,  the  Fourth  Philippic , 
and  the  Speech  in  reply  to  the  Letter  of  Philip ;  and  his  order  of  the  Olynthiacs 
(II,  III,  I)  is  open  to  very  grave  dispute.  He  justly  observes  that  Greek 

rhetoric  is  indebted  not  to  the  Peripatetic  school  alone,  but  also  to  orators  such 

* 

as  Antiphon,  Isocrates,  Isaeus,  Demosthenes,  Aeschines,  Lycurgus  and  Ilyper- 
eides;  to  Thrasymachus  and  Theodorus;  to  Alcidamas  (the  pupil  of  Gorgias) ; 
to  Theodectes  and  other  disciples  of  Isocrates ;  and  to  Anaximenes,  the 
contemporary  of  Philip  and  Alexander1.  This  is  the  only  extant  work  of 
Dionysius  which  deals  solely  with  a  question  of  literary  history  as  contrasted 
with  literary  criticism. 

(2)  The  treatise  On  the  A rrangement  of  Words  (yepi  ovvdtoews  dvofi&Tcov, 
De  Compositione  Verborum),  dedicated  to  the  writer’s  pupil,  Rufus  Melitius,  is 
a  more  extensive  and  a  maturer  work.  It  begins  by  distinguishing  between 
thoughts  and  words,  between  ‘the  sphere  of  subject-matter’  (o'  tv  pay  par  ckos 
t6ttos)  and  ‘the  sphere  of  expression’  (6  Xcktikos  t6ttos).  This  last  includes 
choice  of  words,  and  arrangement  of  words,  but  the  latter  alone  is  here  treated. 
Then  follows  a  brief  review  of  the  history  of  the  ‘parts  of  speech’.  Nouns, 
verbs  and  connecting-particles  (abi >5eogoi)  were  recognised  by  ‘  Theodectes  and 
Aristotle’.  The  article  {& pdpov)  was  added  by  the  Stoics.  Later  writers 
successively  separated  the  adjective  (to  vpoarjyopLKdv)  and  the  pronoun  (avrw- 
vvp.La )  from  the  noun;  the  adverb  (4i rippypa)  from  the  verb;  the  preposition 
[irpbdeoLs)  from  the  connecting-particle;  the  participle  ( p-eroxv )  from  the 
adjective,  and  so  on.  The  proper  combination  of  these  parts  of  speech  makes 
a  ku>\ov,  and  the  proper  combination  of  /cw\a  makes  a  ‘period’  (c.  2).  The 
art  of  arrangement  inverse  and  prose  is  next  illustrated  (c.  3)  from  Homer  (Od. 
xvi  1 — 16)  and  Herodotus  (i  8 — 10),  and  shorter  passages  in  both  are  re¬ 
written  to  show  the  superiority  of  their  original  form.  Among  those  who  had 
neglected  the  art,  were  Polybius,  Hegesias  and  Chrysippus  (c.  4).  At  a  later 
point,  the  due  arrangement  of  words  and  clauses  and  figures  of  thought  are 
discussed  (c.  6 — 9).  Beauty  (or  ‘nobility’)  of  style  (r6  /caX6v)  is  exemplified  by 

1  Ad  Ammaeum ,  i  2  (W.  Rhys  Roberts,  p.  41). 


XV.] 


DIONYSIUS  OF  HALICARNASSUS. 


275 


Thucydides  and  Antiphon ;  charm  of  style  (17  ijdov'rj)  by  Ctesias  and  Xenophon ; 
and  both  by  Herodotus  (c.  10),  for  whom  his  countryman,  the  Halicarnassian 
critic,  has  an  unbounded  admiration.  These  results  are  mainly  attained  by 
means  of  melody,  rhythm,  variety,  and  propriety  (rb  TTpeirov).  In  connexion 
with  melody  we  have  an  examination  of  a  few  lines  of  the  Orestes  (c.  11).  But, 
in  the  use  of  all  these  means,  much  must  depend  on  tact  ( iccupbs ),  and  no  manual 
of  tact  had  been  hitherto  mapped  out  by  any  rhetorician  or  philosopher  (c.  12)1. 
Euphony  (as  an  element  of  ‘melody’)  is  next  illustrated  by  the  sounds  of  the 
letters  of  the  alphabet,  here  divided  into  vowels  (<puvr]evTa,  (papal)  and  con¬ 
sonants  (\fb(poL) ;  and  the  latter  into  semivowels  (7]pL(puva)  and  mutes  (&<pwva). 
Long  vowels  are  more  euphonious  than  short  vowels.  The  descending  order 
of  euphony  is  for  the  vowels,  a,  77,  w,  u,  t,  0,  e ;  and  for  the  semivowels,  \ 
and  p,  next  p  and  v,  and  lastly  s,  which  is  denounced  as  a  disagreeable  letter. 
The  nine  mutes  are  next  classified  firstly  as  1 piXa  ( tenues )  baaea  ( aspiratae ) 

X,  <p,  0;  and  peaa  [mediae)  7,  /3,  5;  and  secondly  as  gutturals  ( k ,  %,  7),  labials 
(-7T,  0,  (3)  and  dentals  (r,  0,  5);  and  in  the  former  classification  the  aspirates  are 
regarded  as  superior  to  the  mediae ,  and  the  mediae  to  the  tenues  (c.  14).  The 
effect  produced  by  apt  combination  of  letters  and  syllables  is  happily  illustrated 
(c.  15)  by  Homer’s  rj'Cbves  fioouaiv  (II.  xvii  265)  and  x€PaL  ( Od .  ix 

416).  Further,  the  sense  of  the  word  must  be  suggested  by  the  sound ,  as  in 
Homer’s  descriptions  of  the  scream  of  the  eagle,  the  rush  of  arrows,  and  the 
breaking  of  waves  on  the  shore.  In  this  connexion  it  is  noticed  that  aptitude 
for  imitation,  and  for  invention  of  names,  is  a  natural  instinct ;  and  Plato  is 
mentioned  as  having  been  the  first  to  discuss  etymology,  in  the  Cratyhis  and 
elsewhere.  ‘  That  diction  ’  (he  continues)  ‘  must  necessarily  be  beautiful  in 
which  there  are  beautiful  words ;  and  beautiful  words  are  caused  by  beautiful 
syllables  and  letters’2.  Then  follow  further  illustrations  from  Homer,  the  ‘poet 
of  the  many  voices’  (6  TroXvcpojvbraTos  airavTuv  tuiv  7 roirjT&v),  whether  he  is 
describing  the  grace  of  Penelope,  the  growth  of  the  palm-tree,  the  beauty 
of  Chloris,  the  ugliness  of  Gorgo,  the  meeting  of  the  mountain-torrents,  the 
conflict  between  Achilles  and  the  Scamander,  or  the  fate  of  the  comrades  of 
Odysseus  in  the  den  of  Polyphemus.  Beauty  of  language  had  been  defined  by 
Theophrastus  as  depending  on  the  beauty  of  individual  words ;  but  much  may 
be  attained  by  skilful  combinations  of  sound.  In  the  Catalogue  of  the  ships 
(II.  ii  494 — 501)  even  the  uncouth  names  of  Boeotian  towns  had  been  invested 
with  beauty  by  the  skill  of  Homer  (c.  16).  The  various  metrical  feet  are  next 
enumerated  and  distinguished  (c.  17);  and  metrical  effects  illustrated  from 
masters  of  style,  such  as  Homer,  Thucydides,  Plato  and  Demosthenes,  as  con¬ 
trasted  with  the  Asiatic  orator,  Hegesias  (c.  18).  In  the  sequel,  the  charm  of 
variety  is  exemplified  by  the  metres  of  Stesichorus  and  Pindar,  and  by  the 
periods  of  Herodotus,  Plato  and  Demosthenes  (c.  19);  apt  propriety  by  Homer’s 
effective  description  of  the  stone  of  Sisyphus,  where  the  sound  is  an  echo  to  the 
sense  (Od.  xi  593 — 8).  The  three  appovla t,  or  modes  of  composition,  are  next 
distinguished  as  (1)  the  ‘austere’  (avaT-rjpct  appovla  or  avvOeats),  represented  by 


1  Rhys  Roberts,  p.  46  n. 


2  Cp.  Saintsbury,  i  130. 

l8 — 2 


2  76 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Antimachus  and  Empedocles  in  epic  poetry,  Pindar  in  lyric,  Aeschylus  in 
tragic;  Thucydides  in  history,  and  Antiphon  in  oratory  (c.  22);  (2)  the  ‘smooth 
or  florid’  (7 Xcupvpd,  avO-qpa),  by  Hesiod,  Sappho,  Anacreon,  Simonides,  Euripides, 
Ephorus,  Theopompus  and  Isocrates  (c.  23);  and  (3)  the  ‘intermediate’  (kolvIj), 
by  Homer,  Stesichorus,  Alcaeus,  Sophocles,  Herodotus,  Democritus,  Plato, 
Aristotle  and  Demosthenes  (c.  24).  In  connexion  with  the  question  how  far  a 
composition  in  prose  may  resemble  a  beautiful  poem,  the  brief  rule  in  Aristotle’s 
Rhetoric  (iii  8,  3),  that  prose  must  have  rhythm  without  metre,  is  expanded 
into  the  precept  that  prose  should  be  metrical,  rhythmical  and  melodious 
without  actually  becoming  metre,  rhythm  or  poem.  This  precept  is  illustrated 
by  passages  from  Demosthenes  ;  and,  in  reply  to  the  objection  that  it  is 
incredible  that  so  great  an  orator  could  have  spent  such  pains  on  these  minor 
matters,  the  critic  urges  that  there  is  no  cause  for  wonder,  if  one  who  surpassed 
all  his  predecessors  in  oratorical  fame,  should,  in  fashioning  works  for  all  future 
ages,  and  in  submitting  himself  to  the  inexorable  test  of  Envy  and  of  Time, 
use  no  thought  or  word  at  random,  but  should  pay  no  small  regard  to  the  order 
of  his  thoughts,  and  the  grace  of  his  language.  If  Isocrates  spent  at  least  ten 
years  on  his  Panegyric,  and  the  first  eight  words  of  Plato’s  Republic  were  found 
on  the  author’s  tablet  arranged  in  several  different  ways,  we  cannot  wonder  if 
Demosthenes  also  took  pains  to  attain  euphony  and  harmony,  and  to  avoid 
employing  a  single  word,  or  a  single  thought,  which  he  had  not  carefully 
weighed1.  The  work  concludes  with  the  inquiry  how  far  poetry  can  resemble 
fine  prose.  This  is  less  possible  in  heroic  and  iambic  than  in  lyric  verse,  where 
the  measures  are  more  free,  as  is  shown  in  Simonides’  famous  Ode  on  Danae, 
which  (like  Pindar’s  dithyramb  in  c.  22,  and  Sappho’s  Ode  to  Aphrodite  in  c.  23) 
is  here  fortunately  transcribed  and  thus  transmitted  to  posterity. 

(3)  On  the  Aitcient  Orators  (7 repi  t<2v  apx&Luv  prjTdpuv  inrop.v7jp.aTi<rpLoL). 
This  treatise  was  originally  in  two  parts,  comprising  (1)  three  earlier  orators, 
Lysias,  Isocrates,  Isaeus,  (2)  three  later  orators,  Demosthenes,  Hypereides, 
Aeschines,  the  first  three  being  distinguished  as  having  invented  eloquence,  and 
the  second  three  as  having  brought  it  to  perfection,  (l)  alone  is  extant ;  the 
account  of  Demosthenes  in  (2)  may  possibly  survive  in  an  expanded  form  in  the 
special  treatise  on  that  orator  (No.  4).  Here  the  critic  aims  at  establishing  a 
standard  for  Greek  prose,  not  in  oratory  alone,  but  in  every  variety  of  compo-  • 
sition.  Hence  he  treats  the  orators  less  as  individual  writers  than  as  types. 
In  the  Essays  on  Lysias,  Isocrates  and  Isaeus,  he  gives  a  life  of  each  followed 
by  a  critique  on  his  style,  and  a  series  of  illustrative  extracts  from  his  works. 
The  style  of  Lysias  is  praised  for  purity  of  diction,  moderation  in  the  use  of 
metaphor,  clearness,  conciseness,  terseness,  vividness,  truth  to  character, 
perfect  appropriateness,  winning  persuasiveness  and  inimitable  charm  (c.  13); 
Isocrates  is  commended  for  his  patriotic  spirit,  as  well  as  for  a  smoothness  and 
amplitude  of  style,  which  is  marred  however  by  a  certain  tameness  and  pro¬ 
lixity;  Isaeus,  who  is  less  natural  and  more  obtrusively  clever  than  Lysias,  is. 

1  This  celebrated  passage,  and  its  context,  is  translated  in  Jebb’s  Attic 
Orators ,  1  lxxvi  f. 


XV.] 


DIONYSIUS  OF  HALICARNASSUS. 


277 


extolled  as  the  source  of  the  oratorical  power  of  Demosthenes.  The  three 
orators  are  contrasted  in  several  happy  phrases :  e.g.  ‘  Isocrates  strives  to  attain 
the  charm  which,  with  Lysias,  is  a  gift  of  nature’  ( Isocr .  3).  Lysias  is  so 
natural  that  ‘even  if  he  states  what  is  false,  you  believe  him’;  Isaeus  so  clever 
that  ‘even  if  he  is  telling  the  truth,  you  suspect  him’  (Is.  3).  Lysias  ‘does  not 
arouse  his  audience,  as  Isocrates  or  Demosthenes’  (Lys.  28). — Dionysius  deals 
with  Demosthenes  and  Deinarchus  in  later  works  (Nos.  4  and  6),  but  on  a 
different  scale  and  with  a  different  aim. 

(4)  On  the  Eloquence  of  Demosthenes.  The  original  title  and  the  beginning 
are  lost;  the  current  titles,  irepi  ttjs  \e  kt  ikt)s  &Tjp.o(r6lvovs  duvor^Tos  and  De 
admiranda  vi  dicendi  in  Demosthene,  come  from  Sylburg’s  ed.,  1586.  At  the 
end  the  author  promises  a  treatise  irepl  tt)s  tt  pay  p.ar  ikt)s  avrov  SeivorrjTos, 
which  is  not  extant.  The  present  work,  even  in  its  mutilated  form,  is  justly 
regarded  as  a  masterpiece  of  criticism1.  Demosthenes  is  here  described  as 
having  formed  his  style  on  a  happy  combination  of  all  that  was  best  in  the 
three  typical  varieties  of  diction,  (1)  the  elevated  and  elaborate  (Ae£is,  vxf/rj\rj, 
irepiTTr),  ij-r}Xkayp.lv7]) ,  represented  by  Thucydides  ;  (2)  the  smooth  and  plain 
(\iT7]  Kai  acpeXris),  by  Lysias:  (3)  the  mixed  and  composite  (puktt\  ical  ovvdeTos), 
by  Isocrates  (c.  1 — 3,  33,  34,  36).  The  distinction  between  these  three  types 
is  probably  due  to  Theophrastus  (c.  3).  In  the  latter  part  of  the  treatise  the 
three  modes  of  composition  (as  contrasted  with  the  three  varieties  of  diction  above 
mentioned)  are  (as  in  De  Comp.  22 — 24)  carefully  discriminated,  (1)  the  austere, 
represented  by  Aeschylus,  Pindar  and  Thucydides;  (2)  the  smooth ,  by  Hesiod, 
Sappho,  Anacreon  and  Isocrates  ;  and  (3)  the  mixed,  by  Homer,  Herodotus, 
Plato  and  Demosthenes  (c.  36 — 42) 2.  Demosthenes,  in  all  his  multiform 
variety,  is  compared  to  the  fabled  Proteus  (c.  8).  His  speeches  are  remarkable 
for  their  effect  on  the  emotions,  which  may  still  be  felt  even  by  the  reader. 
‘When  I  am  reading  any  of  the  speeches  of  Isocrates,  I  become  sober  and 
calm...,  but,  when  I  take  up  one  of  those  of  Demosthenes,  I  am  roused  to 
enthusiasm,  and  driven  hither  and  thither...,  and  I  share  in  all  the  emotions 
that  sway  the  mind  of  man’  (c.  22). 

(5)  The  Letter  to  Gnaeus  Pompeius  (possibly  a  Greek  freedman  of  Pompey) 
is  in  reply  to  a  correspondent  who  is  dissatisfied  with  the  writer’s  criticisms  on 
Plato.  Dionysius  protests  that  he  has  really  fallen  under  the  spell  of  Plato’s 
marvellous  powers  of  expression,  and  adds  that,  although  he  happens  to  prefer 
Demosthenes  to  Plato  and  Isocrates,  he  does  no  wrong  to  either  of  the  latter 
(c.  1).  He  quotes  from  his  Ancient  Orators  a  passage  on  Plato  describing  him 
as  combining  the  elevated  style  with  the  plain,  and  as  being  less  successful  in 
the  former,  whereas  the  plain  style  in  Plato  is  ‘mellowed  by  the  tinge  of 
antiquity’,  it  ‘remains  radiant  in  beauty’,  and  is  ‘like  a  balmy  breeze  blowing 
from  meadows  of  surpassing  fragrance’.  He  cites  examples  of  both  of  these 
styles  from  the  Phaedrus,  adding  that,  whereas,  in  Plato,  ‘elevation  of  style 
sometimes  lapses  into  emptiness  and  dreariness  ’,  this  is  never,  or  hardly  ever, 
the  case  in  Demosthenes  (c.  2).  He  has  also  been  asked  for  his  views  on 


1  Blass,  Gr.  Bereds.,  p.  180. 


2  Cp.  supra ,  p.  275  f. 


278 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Herodotus  and  Xenophon.  In  reply  he  quotes,  from  the  Second  Book  of  his 
lost  treatise  On  Imitation  (irepl  uu/x-paews),  a  long  passage  on  these  historians,  and 
also  on  Thucydides,  Philistus  and  Theopompus.  This  is  almost  all  that  sur¬ 
vives  of  the  treatise  in  question.  The  First  Book  (Dionysius  tells  us)  was  on 
the  general  nature  of  Imitation  (not  as  a  principle  underlying  all  the  fine  arts, 
but  as  a  process  of  copying  existing  models  of  style) ;  the  Second,  on  the  authors 
who  ought  to  be  imitated;  the  Third  (not  then  finished),  on  the  proper  mode 
of  imitation.  Fragments  of  an  epitome  of  the  Second  Book  are  extant  under 
the  title  of  tCjv  apxa-lw  xplois,  De  Veterum  Censura1.  It  is  these  fragments  that 
enable  us  to  compare  the  criticisms  of  Dionysius  with  those  of  Quintilian 

(x  i). 

(6)  On  Deinarchas.  Dionysius  here  deals  with  the  life  and  style  of 
Deinarchus,  but  his  main  object  is  to  draw  up  a  ci'itical  list  of  that  orator’s 
speeches.  He  distinguishes  60  as  genuine  and  more  than  27  as  spurious. 
Some  of  them  are  rejected  on  grounds  of  either  style  or  chronology,  as  in  the 
case  where  he  triumphantly  shows  that,  at  the  date  of  the  delivery  of  a  certain 
speech,  its  supposed  author,  Deinarchus,  ‘  had  not  yet  attained  the  age  of  ten  ’ 

(c-  13)* 

(7)  On  Thucydides ,  addressed  to  Q.  Aelius  Tubero,  probably  the  jurist 

and  historian  of  that  name.  This  is  a  critique  (a)  on  the  historian’s  treatment 
of  his  subject-matter,  and  ( b )  on  his  style.  Under  (a)  Dionysius  discusses  the 
historian’s  choice  of  his  theme,  and  his  mode  of  handling  it,  objecting  to  his 
annalistic  method  (c.  9),  his  unsatisfactory  statement  of  the  causes  of  the  war 
(10),  and  his  abrupt  conclusion  (12).  He  ought  (says  Dionysius)  to  have 
begun  with  the  true  cause,  the  growth  of  the  Athenian  power ;  and  the  most 
effective  ending  (as  he  says  elsewhere)  would  have  been  the  return  of  the 
exiles  from  Phyle  and  the  restoration  of  the  constitution  ( ad  Pomp.  3). 
Dionysius  also  finds  fault  with  the  insignificance  of  the  occasion  selected  for  the 
delivery  of  the  famous  Funeral  Oration  (18),  and  with  the  want  of  proportion 
in  various  parts  of  the  work  (13 — 15).  Under  ( b )  he  quotes  the  account  of  the 
last  battle  in  the  great  harbour  of  Syracuse  (vii  69 — 72)  and  the  reflexions  on 
the  factions  of  Greece  (iii  81 — 2)  for  praise  and  blame  respectively  (c.  26—33). 
In  the  second  passage  he  is  specially  severe  on  the  sentence,  pq.ov  S'  oi  iroWol 
KaKovpyoi  oVres  Se^ioi  KidK-pvTai  rj  ap.adeh  ayadoL,  Kal  rip  p.ev  aicrx^ovraL,  iirl  Si 
rep  ayaWovTai  (iii  82,  7)  and  his  remarks  (c.  32)  compel  one  to  conclude  that 
he  could  not  construe  the  passage.  He  also  finds  fault  with  the  Melian 
Dialogue  (37 — 41),  but  in  the  next  chapter  (42)  adds  a  list  of  those  of  the 
speeches  that  he  deems  worthy  of  imitation.  On  the  whole,  however,  he  has 
an  unfavourable  opinion  of  the  speeches,  while  he  regards  the  narrative  portions 
of  the  history  as  (with  few  exceptions)  admirable.  Here  and  elsewhere  (c.  25 
and  ad  Pomp.  c.  3,  de  Deinarcho  c.  23)  Dionysius  clearly  contemplates  the 
case  of  his  contemporaries  actually  trying  to  write  like  Thucydides.  The  case 
was  not  imaginary,  as  we  may  infer  from  earlier  evidence  in  Cicero’s  Orator 
(30,  32)*  ^  this  connexion  that  Dionysius  insists  in  conclusion  that 

1  Usener,  Dion.  Hal.  de  Imitatione  (supra,  p.  194,  n.  4). 


XV.] 


DIONYSIUS  OF  HALICARNASSUS. 


279 


Thucydides  had  been  imitated  by  no  ancient  writer  except  Demosthenes,  who 
had  assimilated  his  merits,  while  he  had  avoided  his  faults  (c.  53). 

(8)  The  Second  Letter  to  Ammaeus  deals  more  minutely  with  the  style  of 
Thucydides.  It  begins  with  a  summary  of  the  characteristics  of  that  style, 
quoted  from  De  TJuccydide,  c.  24.  It  exemplifies  each  of  those  characteristics 
in  turn,  viz.  his  use  of  obscure,  archaic  and  poetic  words  (c.  3),  of  periphrasis 
and  brachylogy  (4),  of  noun  for  verb  (5)  and  verb  for  noun  (6),  of  active  for 
passive  (7)  and  passive  for  active  (8),  of  singular  for  plural  and  plural  for 
singular  (9  and  13) ;  of  persons  for  things  and  things  for  persons  (14) ;  also  his 
confusion  of  genders  (10),  his  peculiar  uses  of  cases  (it)  and  tenses  (12),  his  use 
of  parenthesis  (15),  his  involved  expressions  (16),  and  his  affected  figures  of 
speech  (17).  In  the  criticism  of  historians  in  general  Dionysius  is  unsatisfactory; 
like  other  ancient  writers,  he  regards  history  as  a  branch  of  rhetoric,  and  he 
is  far  less  conscious  of  the  intellectual  greatness  than  of  the  stylistic  obscurity 
of  Thucydides.  He  tells  us  that  ‘there  are  very  few  who  can  understand 
everything  in  Thucydides,  and  there  are  some  things  which  even  they  cannot 
understand  without  a  commentary’  (51).  Even  apart  from  the  textual  evidence 
supplied  by  his  extensive  quotations  from  the  historian,  such  a  statement 
incidentally  confirms  the  belief  that  in  the  days  of  Dionysius  the  historian’s 
text  was  not  very  different  from  that  which  we  now  possess.  If  all  the  clauses 
recently  rejected  as  ‘ascripts’,  on  the  ground  of  their  interfering  with  perfect 
lucidity  of  expression,  had  been  really  absent  from  the  text  of  that  time,  we 
should  not  have  found  in  Dionysius  so  many  complaints  as  to  the  difficulty  of 
Thucydides. 

Thus  far  for  the  genuine  works  of  Dionysius.  The  Aid  of  Rhetoric,  ascribed 
to  Dionysius,  is  unworthy  of  his  name,  and  is  (in  part  at  least)  demonstrably 
later  than  his  time.  It  falls  into  three  sections:  (1)  on  the  various  types  of 
epideictic  speeches  (c.  t — 7),  in  which  mention  is  made  of  an  orator  Nicostratits, 
who  lived  under  Marcus  Aurelius  (d.  180  a.d.)  ;  (2)  on  oratorical  figures  of 
thought  (irepl  tGiv  icrxrdLaTL^^v(3}V  \6yuv),  treated  in  c.  8  and  more  fully  in  c.  9, 
possibly  a  very  early  work  of  Dionysius  and  including  in  both  chapters  one  of 
his  favourite  quotations,  oi)/c  i/ids  6  /xvdos ;  (3)  on  the  faults  to  be  avoided  in 
oratorical  exercises  (c.  10),  and  on  the  criticism  of  speeches  (c.  11).  These 
two  chapters  have  many  points  of  similarity,  and  probably  a  common  author¬ 
ship.  The  author’s  promise  of  a  treatise  On  Imitation  at  the  end  of  c.  10 
must  have  led  to  the  whole  work  being  assigned  to  Dionysius,  though  it  is 
unlike  him  either  in  matter  or  manner1. 

In  the  undoubtedly  genuine  works  of  Dionysius  we  may  regret 
a  certain  want  of  appreciation  of  the  real  merits  of  Thucydides 
and  of  Plato ;  but  we  must  recognise  the  fact  that,  in  the  minute 
and  technical  criticism  of  the  art  and  craft  of  Greek  literature, 
these  works  stand  alone  in  all  the  centuries  that  elapsed  between 


1  Cp.  Christ,  §  464s,  p.  642  note. 


2  SO 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP, 


the  Rhetoric  of  Aristotle  and  the  treatise  On  the  Sublime.  Their 
author  is  called  by  an  anonymous  writer  the  ‘  canon  of  rhetorical 
criticism’1,  and  is  described  by  Doxopater  (cent,  xi)  as  ‘the  great 
Dionysius,  the  excellent  exponent  and  indeed  the  father  of  our 
art’2.  Among  modern  writers,  he  is  recognised  by  Grafenhan 
(iii  344)  as,  ‘in  point  of  learning  and  insight,  one  of  the  best 
critics  of  his  time’.  M.  Egger  (p.  393)  less  generously  observes 
that  ‘  apart  from  industry  in  the  accumulation  of  materials  and  a 
certain  acumen  in  grammatical  analysis,  he  is  destitute  of  all  that 
marks  a  true  critic’.  Mr  Saintsbury,  necessarily  placing  him 
below  Aristotle  in  authority,  method  and  traditional  importance, 
and  below  ‘Longinus’  in  critical  inspiration  (p.  127),  accepts  him 
‘as  a  critic  who  saw  far,  and  for  the  most  part  truly,  into  the 
proper  province  of  literary  criticism — that  is  to  say,  the  reasonable 
enjoyment  of  literary  work  and  the  reasonable  distribution  of  that 
work  into  good,  not  so  good,  and  bad’  (p.  137).  Lastly,  Professor 
Rhys  Roberts,  in  an  admirable  edition  of  the  ‘Three  Literary 
Letters’,  has  noticed  that  ‘his  critical  writings  form  a  golden 
treasury  of  extracts  from  the  best  writers  of  Greece  ’ ;  that  he 
repeatedly  ‘  reminds  us  of  the  often-forgotten  truth  that  the 
excellence  of  the  ancient  authors  was  the  result  of  ingenious  and 
elaborate  art’.  ‘A  studied  simplicity  is  the  ideal  he  upholds’. 
‘His  own  style  of  writing... is  at  least  eminently  lucid  and  un¬ 
affected’.  ‘He  was  at  once  a  scholar  and  a  critic’,  and  ‘he 
furnishes  us  with  one  of  the  earliest  and  best  examples  of  the 
systematic  exercise  of  the  art  of  literary  criticism  ’.  He  dwells, 
‘at  perhaps  disproportionate  length,  on  matters  of  style  and  purely 
verbal  criticism ;  but  for  the  modern  world  ’  this  has  ‘  not  been 
altogether  a  disadvantage ;  he  has  helped  where  help  was  most 
needed’  (pp.  46 — 9).  In  that  modern  world  he  has  inspired 
Boileau  (1674)  and  Pope  (1711)3  with  some  of  their  precepts  on 
the  art  of  poetry,  and  (in  1834)  Tennyson  wras  quoting  from  the 
extant  epitome  of  a  lost  work  of  Dionysius  when  he  said  in  a 
letter  to  Spedding :  ‘  I  have  written  several  things  since  I  saw  you, 
some  emulative  of  the  ySv  Kal  /3pa%y  Kal  ytyaXon pe7T€<s  of  Alcaeus, 

1  Spengel,  Rhet.  Gr.  i  460.  2  Walz,  Rhet.  Gr.  vi  17. 

3  Cp.  Essay  on  Criticism ,  175 — 8  ( De  Comp.  c.  12),  and  665,  ‘  See  Dionysius 
Homer’s  thoughts  refine,  And  call  new  beauties  forth  from  ev’ry  line  ’. 


XV.] 


CAECILIUS  OF  CALACTE. 


28l 


Others  of  the  ii<\oyrj  twv  ovofj.aT(x)V  Kal  rr}<s  crwOeareux;  aKpifiua  of 
Simonides’1. 

With  the  name  of  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus  we  naturally 
associate  that  of  his  friend  Caecilius  of  Calacte  on 
the  northern  coast  of  Sicily.  Dionysius  describes  caiactellUS  °f 
his  friend  as  agreeing  with  him  in  the  view  that  it 
was  ‘the  enthymemes  of  Thucydides’  which  ‘had  been  specially 
imitated  and  emulated  by  Demosthenes’  (ad  Pomp.  3);  and  the 
two  critics  are  often  linked  together  by  Quintilian  (iii  1,  ix  3)  and 
the  unknown  writer  of  the  Lives  of  the  Ten  Orators.  Caecilius 
was  the  author  of  a  work  on  the  characteristics  of  the  Ten 
Orators2,  but  the  only  important  fragment  of  this  work  which  has 
reached  us  is  a  criticism  on  Antiphon,  noticing  that  he  seldom,  if 
ever,  uses  the  ‘  figures  of  thought  ’ 3.  The  title  is,  however,  of 
interest  as  the  earliest  trace  of  that  canon  of  the  Ten,  which  is 
recognised  by  Quintilian,  but  not  by  Dionysius,  and  which  cannot 
with  any  certainty  be  ascribed  to  Didymus.  As  Caecilius  was  a 
pupil  of  the  Pergamene  scholar  Apollodorus,  it  has  been  proposed 
to  trace  this  canon  to  the  school  of  Pergamon4,  but  it  is  quite  as 
likely  to  have  had  an  Alexandrian  origin  (p.  129).  In  either  case 
it  is  important  to  notice  that  the  very  form  of  the  title  shows  that 
the  canon  was  already  recognised  and  was  not  invented  by 
Caecilius.  His  rhetorical  writings  included  a  comparison  between 
Demosthenes  and  Aeschines,  and  between  Demosthenes  and 
Cicero ;  also  a  lexicon,  an  art  of  rhetoric  and  a  work  on  figures 
of  speech5.  His  lost  treatise  Kepi  m f/ovs  (‘on  elevation  of  style’) 
is  described  by  the  author  of  the  extant  treatise  bearing  the  same 
title,  as  falling  short  of  the  dignity  of  the  subject,  as  giving 


1  Memoir ,  i  140. — On  the  rhetorical  works  of  Dionysius,  cp.  Blass,  De 
Dion.  Hal.  Scriptis  Rhetoricis ,  1863,  Gr.  Bereds.  (1865)  c.  vi;  Christ,  §  464s; 
Croiset,  v  356 — 370;  also  Egger,  396 — 406;  Saintsbury,  127 — 137;  and  esp. 
W.  Rhys  Roberts’  ed.  of  the  ‘Three  Literary  Letters,’  ad  Ammaeum  i,  ii  and 
ad  Pompeium  (Cambridge  Univ.  Press),  1901,  and  the  literature  there  quoted. 
Max.  Egger’s  Denys  d'Halicarnasse,  pp.  306,  has  appeared  since  (1902). 

2  7 rept  xa pa-KTTjpos  tCjv  8£kol  pTjTopuv.  3  Photius,  p.  485^  15. 

4  Brzoska  (1883),  refuted  by  R.  Weise,  Quaestiones  Caecilianae  (1888). 

5  On  Caecilius,  cp.  Blass,  Gr.  Ber.  191 — 221;  Christ,  §  465s;  Croiset  v 

374 — 8;  also  Rhys  Roberts  in  Am.  Journ.  Phil,  xviii  302 — 12,  and  in  his  ed. 
of  ‘Longinus’  On  the  Sublime  (Camb.  Univ.  Press),  1899,  pp.  7,  220 — 2. 


282 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


innumerable  examples  to  illustrate  the  nature  of  ‘  the  sublime 
but  stating  nothing  as  to  the  means  whereby  it  may  be  attained. 

It  is  also  criticised  for  omitting  ‘  passion  ’  as  one  of  the  sources  of 
‘the  sublime’  (c.  8),  and  for  preferring  Lysias  to  Plato  (c.  32  §  8). 

The  extant  treatise  7r€pi  vif/ovs  was  regarded  as  the  work  of 
‘Dionysius  Longinus’  by  all  editors  from  1554 
ir«pl  °v^o\>sS  to  *808,  when  Amati  pointed  out  that  in  a  Vatican 
ms  it  was  ascribed  to  ‘  Dionysius  or  Longinus’. 
The  same  alternative  is  offered  in  the  index  to  two  Paris  mss  ; 
but,  in  the  superscription  of  this  treatise  in  both,  the  two  names 
are  set  side  by  side,  with  a  considerable  space  between  them. 
Lastly,  a  Florence  ms  of  the  treatise  bears  the  inscription 
avuivvfjiov  TT€pl  vif/ovs.  In  this  last  description  we  must  for  the 
present  acquiesce,  as  there  are  very  grave  difficulties  in  ascribing 
the  treatise  either  to  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus  or  to  Cassius 
Longinus  (d.  273),  or  to  any  other  known  author,  such  as 
Plutarch  or  Theon  of  Alexandria.  The  latest  writers  quoted  in 
the  treatise  itself  are  Amphicrates  (pi.  90  b.c.),  Cicero,  Caecilius 
and  Theodorus  (pi.  30  b.c.),  and  it  may  very  well  be  assigned 
to  the  first  century  of  our  era1.  In  any  case  it  is  convenient  to 
notice  it  here  in  close  connexion'  with  Dionysius  and  his  friend 
Caecilius,  whose  own  work  on  the  same  subject  appears  to  have  . 
prompted  its  publication.  Its  general  aim  is  to  point  out  the 
essential  elements  of  an  impressive  style,  which,  avoiding  all 
tumidity,  puerility,  affectation  and  bad  taste,  finds  its  inspiration 
in  grandeur  of  thought  and  intensity  of  feeling,  and  its  expression 
in  nobility  of  diction  and  in  skilfully  ordered  composition.  It 
deals  not  merely  with  ‘  the  Sublime  ’ ;  it  is  a  survey  of  literary 
criticism  in  general,  with  special  reference  to  the  elements  which 
invest  style  with  a  certain  elevation  or  distinction.  (In  the 
following  abstract  the  few  lacunae  in  the  text  are  indicated  by 
asterisks.) 


After  noticing  the  defects  of  the  treatise  of  Caecilius  on  the  same  subject 
(supra,  p.  28 r),  the  author  defines  ‘the  Sublime’  as  consisting  in  ‘a  certain 
distinction  and  excellence  of  language’  (c.  1)  ;  and,  in  answer  to  the  inquiry 
whether  there  is  such  a  thing  as  ‘an  art  of  the  Sublime,’  he  replies  that  a  lofty 
type  of  style  may  be  the  gift  of  Nature,  but  it  is  controlled  by  Art  (c.  2).  *  *  * 


1  See  esp.  the  Introduction  to  the  ed.  by  W.  Rhys  Roberts,  pp.  1 — 17. 


XV.] 


THE  TREATISE  ON  THE  SUBLIME. 


283 


The  faults  of  style  which  are  inconsistent  with  the  Sublime,  are  (1)  tumidity, 

(2)  puerility,  (3)  misplaced  emotion,  and  (4)  bad  taste  (rb  \ pvxpbv).  These 
faults  are  described  :  tumidity  is  exemplified  from  Aeschylus,  and  bad  taste 
from  Timaeus  (c.  3 — 4).  They  are  all  caused  by  the  fashionable  craze  for 
novelty  of  expression  (c.  5). 

To  avoid  these  faults  we  must  acquire  a  clear  knowledge  of  the  true 
Sublime;  This  is  difficult  owing  to  the  fact  that  a  just  judgement  on  style  is  the 
Jinal  fruit  of  much  experience  (r/  t&v  Xoyoju  k plats  7 roXXrjs  eart  irdpas  rdKevraiov 
imylvvrjiijta).  The  true  Sublime  is  that  which  pleases  all  and  always  (c.  6 — 7). 

It  has  five  sources:  (1)  grandeur  of  conception,  (2)  intensity  of  emotion, 

(3)  appropriate  employment  of  figures  of  thought  and  speech,  (4)  nobility  of 
verbal  expression,  and  (5)  dignity  and  elevation  of  composition  (c.  8). 

The  first  of  these  holds  the  foremost  place,  and  can  only  be  attained  by  (so 
far  as  possible)  ‘nourishing  a  soul  sublime’  (ras  tpoyots  avotTplcpeiv  trpbs  ra 
/uteyldr}).  ‘ Sublimity  ’  (as  I  have  said  elsewhere)  is  the  echo  of  greatness  of  soul 
( vxf/os  pteya\o(ppoal)V7]s  arrrixypia.)-  This  is  illustrated  from  Homer,  in  contrast 
with  Hesiod;  also  from  ‘the  legislator  of  the  Jews’...,  who  wrote  in  the  begin¬ 
ning  of  his  Laws,  ‘  God  said,  Let  there  be  light,  and  there  was  light ;  let  there 
be  land,  and  there  was  land.’  As  compared  with  the  Iliad ,  the  Odyssey ,  which 
was  clearly  the  author’s  later  work,  shows  a  decline  in  several  respects,  in  its 
love  of  the  marvellous  and  in  its  subordination  of  action  to  narrative  and  to 
delineation  of  character.  The  Homer  of  the  Odyssey  is  like  the  sinking  sun,  which 
is  still  a  glorious  orb,  but  is  less  intense  in  its  brightness ;  it  is  also  like  the 
ebbing-tide  of  greatness,  drawing  us  into  a  region  of  shallows  strewn  with  myth 
and  legend.  ‘If  I  am  here  speaking  of  old  age,  it  is  still  the  old  age  of 
Homer ’  (c.  9). 

Grandeur  of  conception  is  also  shown  in  choosing  the  most  striking  points, 
and  in  grouping  them  into  a  consistent  whole.  This  is  best  exemplified  in 
Sappho’s  Ode  (to  Anactoria),  where  the  most  varied  sensations  are  combined  in 
one  perfect  picture  (c.  10). 

It  is  also  shown  by  Amplification  (c.  11)  as  is  seen  in  Demosthenes,  as 
compared  with  Plato  and  with  Cicero.  Plato  has  less  of  ‘the  glow  of  a  fiery 
spirit’  than  Demosthenes.  Demosthenes  again  is  like  a  sudden  tempest,  or  a 
thunderbolt,  while  Cicero  resembles  a  widespread  conflagration,  fed  by  a  vast 
and  inexhaustible  store  of  flame  (c.  1 2)  h 

It  is  further  attained  by  imitating  great  writers  of  prose  or  poetry,  even  as 
Homer  was  imitated  by  Archilochus,  Stesichorus,  Herodotus  and  Plato.  In 
composing  anything  that  calls  for  loftiness  of  thought  or  language,  it  is  well 
to  ask  ourselves  how  the  same  thought  would  have  been  expressed  by  Homer 
or  Thucydides  or  Plato  or  Demosthenes;  or  how  our  own  sayings  would  be 

1  Cp.  Tacitus,  Dial .  36,  ‘magna  eloquentia,  sicut  flamma,  materia  alitur  et 
motibus  excitatur  et  urendo  clarescit’,  and  Pitt’s  famous  rendering:  ‘It  is  with 
eloquence  as  with  a  flame;  it  requires  fuel  to  feed  it,  motion  to  excite  it,  and 
it  brightens  as  it  burns’  (Samuel  Rogers’  Recollections ,  and  Stanhope’s  Life  of 
Pitt ,  iii  413). 


284 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


likely  to  strike  Homer  or  Demosthenes  in  the  past,  or  each  succeeding  age  in 
the  future  (c.  14). 

It  is  also  produced  by  vivid  imagery  which  stirs  the  emotions,  as  in  Euri¬ 
pides,  who  spends  the  utmost  pains  on  giving  a  tragic  effect  to  the  emotions 
of  love  and  madness,  besides  invading  all  the  other  regions  of  the  imagination. 
Images  of  a  fine  type  are  found  in  Aeschylus  and  Sophocles,  and  in  Demo¬ 
sthenes  and  Hypereides  (c.  15). 

‘  Intensity  of  emotion  ’  is  here  left  untouched,  as  it  is  reserved  for  another 
treatise.  The  true  Sublime  also  finds  expression  in  Figures  of  speech,  such  as 
Adjuration ,  which  is  well  illustrated  by  the  famous  oath  in  Demosthenes,  by 
those  who  fell  at  Marathon,  Salamis,  Artemisium  and  Plataea  ( De  Cor .  208), 
where  the  orator,  conscious  of  the  defeat  at  Chaeroneia,  does  not  allow  the 
passion  of  the  moment  to  betray  him  into  calling  any  of  the  earlier  engage¬ 
ments  victories,  but  forestalls  all  possible  rejoinder  by  promptly  adding: — ‘a// 
of  whom  had  the  honour  of  a  public  funeral,  and  not  the  victorious  only  ’ 
(c.  16).  The  use  of  a  Figure  is  most  effective,  when  the  fact  that  it  is  a  Figure 
is  unobserved,  as  in  the  oath  by  the  men  of  Marathon,  where  the  ‘Figure’  is 
concealed  by  the  splendour  of  the  context  (c.  17).  Figures  include  rhetorical 
question ,  exemplified  in  the  orator’s  questions  about  Philip  in  the  First  Philippic 
(§§  10,  44)5  also  asyndeton,  illustrated  from  Homer’s  Odyssey  (x  251-2),  the 
Meidias  of  Demosthenes  (§  72)  and  the  Hellenica  of  Xenophon  (iv  3,  19,  iwdouvTo 
efj.&xovTO  airtKTe<.vov  airtOvricrKov),  as  contrasted  with  the  accumulation  of  con¬ 
necting  particles,  characteristic  of  the  school  of  Isocrates  (c.  19 — 21);  also 
hyperbaton  (or  inversion  of  order).  It  is  by  the  use  of  this  last  Figure  in  the  best 
writers  that  imitation  approaches  the  effects  of  nature  ;  for  Art  is  then  perfect, 
when  it  seems  to  be  Nature,  and  Nature  again  is  most  effective  when  she  is 
pervaded  by  the  unseen  presence  of  Art.  Many  illustrations  of  this  Figure  may 
be  found  in  Herodotus,  Thucydides  and  Demosthenes  (c.  22).  Figures  in 
which  several  cases  are  combined,  as  well  as  accumulations,  variations  and 
gradations  of  expression,  are  very  effective,  as  also  interchanges  of  cases,  tenses, 
persons,  numbers  and  genders.  The  interchange  of  singular  and  plural,  and 
the  use  of  the  present  for  the  past,  are  next  illustrated ;  and  it  is  added  that  a 
vivid  effect  is  produced  by  addressing  the  reader,  and  also  by  suddenly  changing 
from  the  third  person  to  the  first  (c.  27).  The  last  Figure  mentioned  is  peri¬ 
phrasis,  which  must  be  handled  with  great  discrimination  (c.  28 — 29). 

The  fourth  source  of  the  Sublime  is  a  careful  choice  of  striking  words  used 
in  their  normal  sense  (c.  30),  on  the  effect  of  which  it  is  needless  to  dilate,  for 
beautiful  words  are  in  very  truth  the  peculiar  light  of  thought  (<pGj s  yap  tuj  outl 
tdiov  rod  vov  ra  Ka\h  6v6p,ara).  #  #  *  As  to  the  number  of  Metaphors  which  may 
properly  be  used  in  a  single  passage,  the  true  standard  is  Demosthenes  (e.g. 
De  Cor.  296).  Excessive  boldness  of  metaphor  may  be  subdued  by  the  apologetic 
devices  suggested  by  Aristotle  and  Theophrastus.  An  accumulation  of  meta¬ 
phors  may  be  allowed  in  passionate  passages.  It  may  also  be  exemplified  from 
Plato’s  Timaeus  (65  C — 85  e)  and  elsewhere,  though  Plato  is  often  criticised  for 
this,  and  Lysias  is  preferred  by  Caecilius  (c.  32). 


XV.]  THE  TREATISE  ON  THE  SUBLIME.  285 


Here  follows  an  interesting  digression  (c.  33 — 36)  on  the  question  whether 
we  should  prefer  grandeur  of  style  with  some  attendant  faults  to  a  perfectly 
faultless  mediocrity,  and  a  greater  number  of  merits  to  merits  that  are  higher 
in  kind.  The  critic  decides  that  Homer  is  to  be  preferred  to  the  comparatively 
faultless  Theocritus  and  Apollonius  Rhodius ;  Archilochus  to  Eratosthenes; 
Pindar  to  Bacchylides ;  Sophocles  to  Ion  (c.  33)  ;  Demosthenes  to  Hypereides 
(c.  34) 1 ;  Plato  to  Lysias  (c.  35). 

Closely  related  to  Metaphors  are  Comparisons  and  Similes  (c.  37),  but  the 
discussion  of  these  is  lost.  *  *  *  Then  follow  illustrations  of  Hyperbole  from 
Herodotus  and  Isocrates  (c.  38). 

Dignity  or  elevation  of  composition  consists  in  the  careful  arrangement  of 
words,  as  in  the  sentence  of  Demosthenes  ( De  Cor.  188)  closing  with  dial rep 
vl<pos;  and  in  the  proper  collocation  of  phrases,  as  in  Euripides,  whose  poetic 
quality  is  due  to  his  power  of  composition  rather  than  his  invention. 

Among  faults  destructive  of  the  Sublime  are  excess  of  rhythm,  broken  and 
jerky  clauses  (c.  41),  undue  conciseness  and  undue  prolixity  (c.  42),  and  lastly 
triviality  of  expression  (c.  43). 

A  philosopher  has  inquired,  why  the  present  age  does  not  produce  great 
authors,  and  whether  this  is  due  to  a  despotic  government.  The  author  suggests 
that  it  is  due  rather  to  human  passions,  such  as  the  love  of  money,  and  the 
love  of  pleasure ;  and  asks  how  we  can  imagine,  in  such  an  age,  the  survival  of 
an  unbiassed  critic  of  great  works  that  are  destined  to  descend  to  posterity. 
He  concludes  by  promising  a  separate  treatise  on  the  Passions  in  connexion 
with  discourse  in  general  and  the  Sublime  in  particular  (c.  44). 

Strange  to  say,  this  remarkable  work  is  never  mentioned  by 
any  extant  classical  writer.  In  modern  times,  beginning  with 
1554,  it  has  been  frequently  edited  and  still  more  frequently 
translated,  notably  by  Boileau  (1674),  whose  preface  prompted 
the  tribute  paid  to  the  supposed  author  of  the  treatise  in  the 
closing  couplet  of  the  following  passage  in  Pope’s  Essay  on 

Criticism  : — 

• 

‘Thee,  bold  Longinus!  all  the  Nine  inspire, 

And  bless  their  critic  with  a  poet’s  fire. 

An  ardent  judge,  who  zealous  in  his  trust, 

With  warmth  gives  sentence,  yet  is  always  just: 

Whose  own  example  strengthens  all  his  laws; 

And  is  himself  that  great  sublime  he  draws’. 

Fenelon  preferred  it  to  Aristotle’s  Rhetoric ,  commending  it  for 
the  way  in  which  it  kindles  the  imagination  while  it  forms  the 

1  In  c.  34,  I  the  text  runs:  ei  8’  dpid/x ip  p.7]  r<p  aXrjdei  rpivoiTO  ra  Karopdcj- 
/rara.  I  may  here  suggest  ei  8’  apa  per)  rtp  /re ytdei  aXXa  rep  tt Xrjdei.  In  33,  1 
we  have  nXeiovs  contrasted  with  p.eL£ov s;  and  in  35,  1  /re ytdei  with  irX-qdei. 


286 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP.  XV. 


taste1.  Gibbon,  who  used  Boileau’s  translation  and  notes,  found 
the  Greek,  ‘from  the  figurative  style  and  bold  metaphors,  ex¬ 
tremely  difficult 5  ( 1 2  Sept.  1762).  Macaulay  inadequately  describes 
its  author  as  ‘  rather  a  fancier  than  a  critic  ’ 2.  In  recent  times 
it  has  been  characterised  by  Egger  (p.  426)  as  ‘the  most  original 
Greek  essay  in  its  kind  since  the  Rhetoric  and  Poetic  of  Aristotle’. 
Of  its  unknown  author  it  has  been  well  said  by  Mr  Andrew 
Lang : — ‘  he  traces  dignity  and  fire  of  style  to  dignity  and  fire 
of  soul’;... ‘he  proclaims  the  essential  merits  of  conviction  and 
of  selection’;  ‘he  sets  before  us  the  noblest  examples  of  the 
past’;  ‘  he  admonishes  and  he  inspires’3.  The  work  was  eulogised 
by  Casaubon4  and  Ruhnken5  as  a  ‘golden  book’;  and  similarly 
Mr  Saintsbury,  while  describing  ‘almost  all  the  book’  as  deserving 
‘  to  be  written  in  letters  of  gold  ’,  would  write  ‘  in  precious 
stones’  the  author’s  ‘admirable  descant’  on  ‘beautiful  words’: 
for  beautiful  words  are  in  deed  and  in  fact  the  very  light  of  the 
spirit  (p.  167).  The  latest  English  editor6  aptly  closes  his 
Introduction  by  characterising  the  author  as  one  whose  ‘deep 
humanity  and  broad  sympathies  have  helped  him  to  interpret 
the  spirit  of  antiquity  to  the  modern  mind,  and  have  given  him 
a  permanent  place  in  the  history  of  literature  as  the  last  great 
critic  of  ancient  Greece  and  (in  some  sense)  the  first  international 
critic  of  a  wider  world’7. 

1  Premier  Dialogue  stir  /’ Eloquence,  quoted  by  Egger,  p.  427. 

2  IVorh,  vii  662. 

3  Introduction  to  Mr  H.  L.  Havell’s  translation  (1890),  p.  xxx  f. 

4  Quoted  in  Boileau’s  Preface. 

5  Dissert,  p.  24  ( Opusc .  p.  525). 

e  W.  Rhys  Roberts,  p.  37. 

7  On  the  treatise  in  general,  cp.  Christ,  §  55 13;  Croiset,  v  378 — 383;  Egger, 
425 — 439;  Saintsbury,  i  152 — 174;  also  the  editions  of  Weiske  (1809),  Egger 
(1:837),  Ja^n  ( 1 867 ),  Vahlen  (18873),  and  esp.  Rhys  Roberts  (1899),  with  the 
literature  there  quoted. 


CHAPTER  XVI. 


VERBAL  SCHOLARSHIP  IN  THE  FIRST  CENTURY 

OF  THE  EMPIRE. 

Turning  from  literary  criticism  to  lexicography,  we  have  to 
record,  among  early  lexicographers  and  compilers 

.  Juba 

of  collectanea,  the  royal  name  of  Juba  II,  king 
of  Mauretania  (fi.  25  b.c.).  The  son  of  Juba  I,  who  (like  Cato) 
put  an  end  to  his  life  after  his  defeat  at  Thapsus  (46  b.c.),  he 
was  taken  to  Rome,  where  he  received  a  careful  education.  As 
a  reward  for  fighting  on  the  side  of  Octavian  against  Antony  and 
Cleopatra,  he  was  permitted  to  marry  the  daughter  of  the  latter, 
and  was  restored  to  his  kingdom  (29  b.c.).  Four  years  later 
he  was  allowed  to  extend  his  dominion  from  Numidia  on  the 
East,  to  the  Pillars  of  Hercules  on  the  West,  placing  his  capital 
at  Iol,  to  which  he  gave  the  name  of  Caesarea  (the  modern 
Cherchet).  After  a  tranquil  reign  he  died  under  Tiberius  about 
20  a.d.  He  is  praised  for  his  historical  research  by  Plutarch, 
who  calls  him  the  most  accomplished  of  kings1,  while  his  varied 
learning  is  similarly  lauded  by  Pliny2  and  Athenaeus3.  He  wrote 
on  the  history  of  Rome,  and  on  Assyria,  Arabia,  and  Libya, 
besides  a  work  in  at  least  eight  books  on  the  Art  of  Painting, 
with  biographies  of  eminent  artists,  and  another  in  at  least  seven¬ 
teen  on  the  History  of  the  Theatre.  The  latter  dealt  with  the 
instruments  of  music  used  in  the  Drama,  with  choral  songs  and 
dances,  and  the  distribution  of  the  several  parts  among  the  actors. 


1  Sertor.  9,  6  ttolvtwv  iaTopiKcoraros  ^aatX^uv,  and  Anton .  87  6  xaPl^aTaTos 
(3a<n \4<av. 

2  N.  H.  v  1,  studiorum  claritate  memorabilior  quam  regno. 

3  83  B,  avT)p  tto\v p.ad £<r Taros. 


288 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Pamphilus 


It  is  quoted  by  Athenaeus  (175  d)  and  Photius  (16 1),  and  large 
parts  of  it  have  probably  passed  without  the  author’s  name  into 
our  scholia  on  the  dramatists  and  especially  into  the  Onomasticon 
of  Pollux1 2.  A  manual  on  metre  ascribed  to  Juba  was  really 
founded  on  the  work  of  a  later  writer,  Heliodorus8. 

Pamphilus  of  Alexandria  ( fl .  50  a.d.)  was  the  compiler  of 
a  vast  work  in  95  books  on  rare  or  difficult  words 
(7 repi.  y\a)o-o-uh/  rjroL  Aegean/),  which  was  superseded  by 
abridgements  and  ultimately  lost.  An  abridgement  of  Pamphilus 
was  regarded  by  C.  F.  Ranke,  M.  Schmidt,  Ritschl  and  Naber 
as  the  source  of  the  lexicon  of  Hesychius,  and  this  abridgement 
was  identified  by  Ranke  and  Schmidt  with  the  neptcpyo7reV^TC9 
(the  ‘  poor  students’  lexicon  ’)  of  Diogenianus,  mentioned  by 
Hesychius  himself  in  his  preface.  But  it  has  since  been  con¬ 
tended  by  Weber  that  the  work  of  Diogenianus  was  an  abridgement 
not  of  Pamphilus  alone  but  of  a  large  number  of  other  lexicons3. 
The  original  work  of  Pamphilus  was  known  to  Athenaeus,  who 
quotes  it  under  various  titles  and  often  by  the  author’s  name 
alone. 

Among  the  contemporaries  of  Pamphilus  was  his  namesake 
Pamphila,  who  lived  for  23  years  at  Epidaurus 
collecting  materials  for  a  miscellaneous  work  in 
33  books  on  facts  and  anecdotes  connected  with  the  history  of 
literature.  It  is  often  quoted  by  Aulus  Gellius4 * * *.  Homer,  Euri¬ 
pides  and  Menander  were  studied  in  her  home,  but  it  is  uncertain 
whether  the  works  on  those  authors,  noticed  by  Suidas  and  others, 
were  written  by  her  father  Soteridas  or  her  husband  Socratidas. 

A  far  less  quiet  life  was  led  by  the  ‘  grammarian  ’  Apion, 
an  Alexandrian  Greek  of  Egyptian  origin,  who 
succeeded  Theon  ( supra ,  p.  142)  as  head  of  the 


Pamphila 


Apion 


1  Rohde,  De  Pollucis fontibus  (1870) ;  Bapp,  Leipz.  Stud,  viii  uof. — Christ, 
§  553s ;  Croiset,  v  402. 

2  Schanz,  Lat.  Lit.  §  606. 

3  Hugo  Weber,  Philol.  Suppl.  iii  (1878),  454  f;  cp.  Bursian’s  Jahresb.  xvii 
125  (1881).  Cp.  Christ,  §§  556s,  6313. 

4  e.g.  xv  17  and  23.  Cp.  Croiset,  v  407.  It  is  Pamphila  who  has  pre¬ 

served  the  tradition  that,  at  the  beginning  of  the  Peloponnesian  war,  the  age 

of  Hellanicus  was  65,  of  Herodotus  53,  and  of  Thucydides  40  (he  was  more 

probably  24). 


XVI.] 


JUBA.  PAMPHILUS.  APION. 


289 


Alexandrian  school,  and  taught  at  Rome  in  the  times  of  Tiberius 
and  Claudius.  His  unwearied  industry  caused  him  to  be  re¬ 
garded  as  one  of  the  sons  of  toil  under  the  nickname  of  Mo'x^os, 
while  his  unbounded  vanity  and  his  noisy  self-assertion  prompted 
Tiberius  to  call  him  £  the  cymbal  of  the  world  ’,  and  Pliny1  to 
improve  on  this  phrase  by  describing  him  as  ‘the  drum  of  his 
own  fame  ’,  or  (as  we  should  say)  ‘the  blower  of  his  own  trumpet’. 
With  the  aid  of  the  writings  of  Aristarchus,  he  compiled  a 
Homeric  glossary  which  is  frequently  quoted  by  Hesychius  and 
Eustathius2.  He  pretended  that  he  had  summoned  from  the 
grave  the  shade  of  Homer,  with  a  view  to  inquiring  as  to  the 
names  of  the  poet’s  parents,  and  the  place  of  his  birth ;  but  he 
refused  to  impart  to  others  the  information  which  he  had  re¬ 
ceived3.  His  historic  work  on  Egypt  supplied  Gellius  with  the 
story  of  Androclus  and  the  Lion  ( supra ,  p.  200).  It  also  included 
certain  charges  against  the  Jews  of  Alexandria,  which  were 
brought  to  the  notice  of  Caligula,  and  answered  by  Josephus 
(37 — c.  100  a.d.)  in  a  work  still  extant.  The  cause  of  the  Jews 
also  found  an  able  advocate  under  Caligula  and  Claudius  in 
the  person  of  the  aged  Philo  Judaeus  (from  20  b.c.  till  after 
40  a.d. ),  who  thus  emerged  for  a  while  from  a  life  of  study  mainly 
spent  on  Plato  and  on  the  allegorical  interpretation  of  the  Book 
of  Genesis  and  the  exposition  of  the  Law  of  Moses. 

Among  the  minor  grammarians  of  this  (and  the  immediately 
preceding)  age,  may  be  mentioned  Ptolemy  of 
Ascalon,  who  appears  to  have  taught  in  Rome  in 
the  time  of  Caesar,  and  was  the  author  of  works 
on  the  correct  pronunciation  of  Greek,  on  Homeric  accentuation 
and  on  the  Aristarchic  recension  of  Homer;  Apollonius,  son 
of  Archibius,  who  produced  under  Augustus  a  Homeric  lexicon, 
an  abridgement  of  which  is  still  in  existence;  Seleucus  of  Alex¬ 
andria,  a  commentator  on  Homer,  who  was  invited  to  the  table 
of  Tiberius  with  a  view  to  discussing  points  which  had  arisen 
in  the  emperor’s  daily  reading,  and  who,  to  prepare  himself  for 
such  discussions,  took  the  imprudent  precaution  of  asking  the 

1  N.  H.  Pref.  25. 

2  Grafenhan,  iii  58,  226,  254;  Christ,  §  557s;  Croiset,  v  405. 

3  Josephus,  contra  Apionem ,  ii  2. 


Minor 

grammarians 


s. 


19 


290 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP.  XVI. 


attendants  what  the  emperor  had  been  reading,  with  the  result 
that  he  was  first  disgraced  and  then  compelled  to  put  himself 
to  death1;  Philoxenus  of  Alexandria,  who  similarly  devoted  his 
attention  to  Homer,  and  to  accentuation,  and  is  often  quoted 
in  the  scholia ;  Erotianus,  who  composed  under  Nero  a  lexicon 
to  Hippocrates,  which  is  still  extant ;  and  Epaphroditus  of 
Chaeroneia  (probably  the  patron  of  Josephus),  who  (according 
to  Suidas)  lived  at  Rome  under  Nero,  Vespasian,  Titus  and 
Domitian,  and  applied  the  resources  of  his  large  library  of  30,000 
books  to  the  exposition  of  Homer,  Hesiod,  Pindar,  Cratinus  and 
Callimachus2.  It  may  here  be  added  that  the  only  extant  Greek 
work  of  L.  Annaeus  Cornutus,  the  friend  and  preceptor  of  Persius, 
is  a  survey  of  the  popular  mythology  as  expounded  in  the  ety¬ 
mological  and  symbolical  interpretations  of  the  Stoics3.  His 
Latin  works  on  ‘  figures  of  thought  ’,  on  ‘  pronunciation  and 
orthography’,  and  his  ‘commentaries  on  Virgil’,  have  not  sur¬ 
vived;  while  the  commentaries  on  Persius  and  Juvenal,  which 
bear  his  name,  belong  to  the  Middle  Ages4. 

1  Suet.  Tib.  56. 

2  Grafenhan,  iii  65  f;  Croiset,  v  35 2  f. 

3  Cornuii  Theologiae  Graecae  compendium ,  ed.  C.  Lang,  1881. 

4  Croiset,  v  418. 


CHAPTER  XVII. 


THE  LITERARY  REVIVAL  AT  THE  END  OF  THE  FIRST 

CENTURY  A.D. 


In  the  revival  of  Greek  literature  towards  the  close  of  the 
first  century,  our  attention  is  claimed  by  two  authors  of  special 
interest,  who  supply  us  with  incidental  evidence  on  the  state  of 
learning  in  their  time. 

The  first  of  these  is  Dion  Chrysostom  ( c .  40 — c.  114  a.d.), 
who  was  born  at  Prusa  in  Bithynia,  and  was  exiled 
from  Bithynia  and  from  Italy  during  the  fifteen  Chrysostom 
years  of  the  reign  of  Domitian  (81 — 96).  In  all 
the  three  periods  of  his  life,  before  and  during  and  after  his 
exile,  he  was  a  great  traveller;  and,  in  the  many  places  which 
he  visited,  he  gave  ample  proof  of  the  eloquence  which  gained 
him  the  name  of  Chrysostom.  We  still  possess,  in  different 
degrees  of  completeness,  some  eighty  of  his  discourses,  which, 
however,  resemble  essays  rather  than  orations.  In  one  of  these 
(n)  he  professes  to  prove  to  the  citizens  of  New  Ilium  ‘that 
Troy  was  not  captured  ’.  For  his  proof  he  relies  on  an  Egyptian 
priest  whom  he  does  not  name,  and  on  inscriptions  which  had 
disappeared ;  also  on  points  of  improbability,  or  impropriety,  in 
the  Homeric  narrative.  The  composition  as  a  whole  is  conceived 
in  a  vein  of  irony,  and  is  simply  a  rhetorical  exercise  which  is  not 
intended  to  be  taken  seriously1.  Far  more  interesting  than  the 
prolixities  of  his  argument  in  the  above  discourse  is  the  incidental 
fact  that  in  his  day  the  inhabitants  of  New  Ilium  learnt  the  Iliad 
by  heart  from  their  earliest  years.  In  another  (52)  we  have  an 
instructive  comparison  between  the  Philoctetes  of  Sophocles 


1  Von  Arnim’s  Dio  von  Prusa ,  p.  166  f. 


19 — 2 


292 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


(409  b.c.)  and  the  plays  of  Aeschylus  and  Euripides  (431  b.c.) 
on  the  same  subject.  The  preliminaries  to  the  perusal  of  the 
three  plays  are  not  without  their  interest.  The  writer  tells  us 
that  he  rose  about  the  first  hour  of  the  day  in  the  cool  and 
almost  autumnal  air  of  a  midsummer  morning ;  he  made  his 
toilette  and  said  his  prayers,  took  a  quiet  drive  followed  by  a 
walk  and  a  short  rest ;  after  this,  when  he  had  bathed  and  anointed 
himself,  he  had  a  slight  breakfast,  and  then  set  to  work  on  the 
plays.  He  states  that  he  was  in  delicate  health  at  the  time,  and 
it  has  been  suggested  that  he  was  recruiting  at  the  country-house 
of  a  friend  and  wrote  his  essay  for  the  entertainment  of  a  house- 
party  of  persons  interested  in  classical  literature1. 

He  describes  his  delight  in  comparing  the  different  ways  in  which  the  three 
great  tragic  poets  had  dealt  with  the  same  theme.  The  work  of  Aeschylus  was 
marked  by  his  customary  grandeur,  his  antique  simplicity,  his  audacity  of  thought 
and  expression2;  that  of  Euripides  by  precision,  acumen,  and  rhetorical  skill3; 
while  that  of  Sophocles  was  in  the  happy  mean  between  the  two,  with  its  noble 
and  elevated  composition4,  at  once  tragic  and  harmonious,  charming  and  sublime. 
Incidentally  we  learn  that,  in  the  play  of  Euripides,  Odysseus  foreshadowed  the 
approach  of  envoys  from  Troy  ;  that,  in  Aeschylus  and  Euripides  alike,  the 
person  of  Odysseus  was  artfully  disguised  by  Athena,  and  the  chorus  was 
composed  of  natives  of  Lemnos  and  not  (as  in  Sophocles)  of  the  Greek  com¬ 
panions  of  Odysseus.  The  choruses  of  Sophocles  were  full  of  charm  and  dignity* 
and  did  not  contain  so  many  moral  sentiments  as  those  of  Euripides.  But  Dion 
would  prefer  to  abolish  the  chorus  altogether5. 

In  a  third  piece  (59)  we  have  a  short  summary  of  the  opening 
of  the  Philoctetes  of  Euripides;  in  another  (55),  an  essay  on  the 
indebtedness  of  Socrates  to  Homer.  In  his  Rhodian  oration 
(31),  in  which  he  rebukes  the  Rhodians  for  dishonouring  their 
benefactors  by  placing  new  names  on  the  pedestals  of  their 
statues,  he  is  clearly  imitating  the  Leptines  of  Demosthenes.  All 
the  above  belong  to  the  literary  group  of  his  discourses.  The 
political  group  (on  the  affairs  of  Bithynia)  does  not  here  concern 
us ;  while  the  moral  discourses  of  the  third  period  of  his  life,, 

1  Von  Arnim,  p.  162. 

2  r)  /j.eya\o(ppo<TiJvr)  Kal  t6  apxaiov ,  ’tn  Si  rd  avffaSes  Trjs  dicLvolas  Kal  (ppac rews* 
and  t6  avdades  Kal  ai rXovv. 

3  rb  a/cpt/3£s  /cat  5pt/n)  /cat  ttoKltlkov. 

4  oepvrjv  Tiva  Kal  pLeya\oirpeirr)  irolyaiv. 

5  Cp.  Jebb’s  Philoctetes ,  pp.  xv — xxi. 


XVII.] 


DION  CHRYSOSTOM. 


293 


which  are  mainly  inspired  by  the  teaching  of  the  Stoics,  include 
grave  denunciations  of  the  vices  and  follies  of  the  inhabitants 
of  the  Phrygian  town  of  Celaenae,  and  of  Tarsus  and  Alexandria. 
But,  fortunately,  they  also  include  an  idyllic  picture  of  the  happy 
and  contented  life  of  the  poor  herdsmen  and  huntsmen  of 
Euboea,  which  is  almost  unique  in  ancient  literature  (7)1;  and 
a  discourse  on  the  blessings  of  an  intelligent  monarchy,  purporting 
to  have  been  addressed  to  the  semi-civilised  inhabitants  of  Olbia, 
near  the  mouth  of  the  Borysthenes,  most  of  whom  knew  Homer 
by  heart,  while  some  of  them  had  even  studied  Plato  (36).  Above 
all,  they  include  the  Olympic  oration  (12),  in  which  Pheidias  is 
described  as  expounding  to  the  Greeks  assembled  at  Olympia 
the  principles  which  had  guided  him  in  the  composition  of  his 
colossal  image  of  the  Olympian  Zeus.  The  discourse  appears 
to  have  been  prompted  by  the  tradition  that  Pheidias  had  derived 
his  inspiration  from  the  three  famous  lines  in  which  the  nod  of 
Zeus  is  described  in  Homer  (//.  i  528 — 530).  There  is  a  striking 
passage  pointing  out  some  of  the  contrasts  between  poetry  and 
sculpture. 

The  art  of  the  poets  (says  Pheidias)  is  free  and  unfettered.  Homer  in 
particular  has  not  confined  himself  to  a  single  dialect,  but  he  has  blended  the 
Doric  and  even  the  Attic  with  the  Ionic,  combining  all  these  varieties  with  as 
much  care  as  the  colours  in  dyeing,  and  not  even  limiting  himself  to  the  dialects 
of  his  own  day  but  going  back  to  the  past  and  giving  fresh  currency  to  some 
archaic  word,  like  an  antique  coin  recovered  from  a  long-lost  hoard ;  not  dis¬ 
daining  even  the  language  of  barbarians,  or  neglecting  any  word  endued  with 
sweetness  or  strength.  Homer’s  metaphors  and  his  modifications  of  ordinary 
words  are  also  eulogised.  He  has  proved  himself  a  creative  poet  in  his  diction, 
in  his  metre,  and  in  his  varied  imitations  of  all  manner  of  sounds,  whether 
of  rivers  and  forests,  of  wind  and  fire  and  sea,  of  stone  or  bronze,  of  beasts  or 
birds,  of  flutes  or  shepherds’  pipes.  Hence  he  is  never  at  a  loss  for  words 
expressing  every  shade  of  thought,  and,  by  the  fertility  of  his  fancy,  he  can 
inspire  the  unind  with  any  emotion  he  pleases.  But  we,  poor  artists  (says 
Pheidias),  are  far  from  enjoying  any  such  freedom.  We  must  use  a  material 
that  is  solid  and  durable,  a  material  hard  to  find  and  hard  to  work;  and  to 

1  Abridged  translation  in  Mahaffy’s  Greek  World  under  Roman  Sway ,  pp. 
276 — 290.  Incidentally  we  learn  from  this  discourse  that,  at  Thebes,  all  but 
the  Cadmeawas  now  in  ruins,  while  a  votive  Hermes,  dedicated  of  old  for  some 
victory  in  flute-playing,  had  been  set  up  anew  amid  the  ruins  of  the  ancient 
agora. 


294 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


each  image  of  a  god  we  can  only  impart  a  single  form  which  has  to  express  all 
the  fulness  of  the  nature  and  power  of  the  Deity.  Poets,  on  the  other  hand, 
can  easily  comprise  in  their  verse  many  varied  forms  of  beauty ;  they  can  at  will 
represent  these  forms  either  at  rest  or  in  motion ;  they  can  represent  acts  and 
words,  and  the  effect  of  illusion,  and  the  lapse  of  time.  With  the  poet,  a 
single  inspiration,  a  single  impulse  of  the  soul,  suffices  to  cause  an  infinite 
number  of  words  to  flow  forth  from  their  source,  before  the  image  and  the 
thought,  which  he  has  seized,  escape  him.  Our  art,  on  the  contrary,  is  painful 
and  difficult ;  it  spends  its  effort  on  hard  and  obdurate  stone,  and  its  progress 
must  needs  be  slow.  But  the  greatest  obstacle  is  that  the  artist  must  keep  the 
same  image  in  his  mind,  it  may  be  for  years,  until  he  has  completed  his  work. 
It  is  said,  perhaps  truly,  that  the  eyes  are  more  trustworthy  than  the  ears;  but 
they  are  more  difficult  to  convince  and  they  insist  on  clearer  and  more  vivid 
evidence.  The  eyes  remain  fixed  on  the  objects  which  they  are  contemplating, 
while  the  ears  may  easily  be  excited  and  led  astray,  when  they  are  thrilled  with 
words  endued  with  all  the  witchery  of  metres  and  sounds,  (i  234-6  Dindorf.) 

This  passage  has  sometimes  been  regarded  as  the  germ  of 
Lessing’s  Laocoon ;  but  it  is  very  doubtful  whether  it  was  even 
known  to  Lessing,  who,  as  his  readers  will  remember,  takes  as 
the  starting-point  of  his  famous  Essay  the  criticism  of  the  dictum 
ascribed  by  Plutarch1  to  Simonides,  to  the  effect  that  Painting 
is  silent  Poetry,  and  Poetry  is  Painting  endued  with  language. 

The  Olympic  discourse  also  contains  some  interesting  remarks 

on  Plato  and  on  myths.  As  a  philosopher,  Dion  clearly  took 

for  his  model  the  Socrates  whom  he  knew  in  the  pages  of 

Plato  and  Xenophon.  In  the  introduction  to  that  discourse 

he  ironically  assumes  a  Socratic  ignorance  as  a  means  towards 

stimulating  reflexion  in  others.  Addressing  the  Alexandrians  in 

Or.  32,  he  describes  himself  (like  Socrates  in  Plato’s  Apology) 

as  sent  to  them  to  forget  himself  and  solely  to  attend  to  their 

moral  good  (i  pp.  404,  407  Dind.).  As  a  writer,  Dion  is 

characterised  by  a  certain  smooth  and  fluent  charm  combined 

with  complete  absence  of  emphasis2.  His  turns  of  phrase  not 

unfrequently  remind  us  of  Plato  or  Demosthenes,  both  of  whom 

were  among  his  favourite  authors.  When  he  went  into  exile 

(as  we  are  assured  by  Philostratus3)  the  only  two  books  which 

he  took  with  him  were  the  Phaedo  of  Plato,  and  the  speech  of 

Demosthenes,  De  Falsa  Legatione.  In  drawing  up  a  course  of 

• 

1  De  Gloria  Ath.  3.  2  Croiset,  v  483. 

3  Vit.  Soph,  i  7. 


XVII.] 


PLUTARCH. 


295 


study  for  a  distinguished  friend,  who  had  asked  his  advice,  he 
names  Menander  and  Euripides  and  (above  all)  Homer,  among 
the  poets  (leaving  melic,  elegiac,  iambic  and  dithyrambic  poets 
to  men  of  leisure) ;  among  prose  authors,  Herodotus  and  Thucy¬ 
dides  and,  in  the  second  rank  of  historians,  Theopompus  rather 
than  Ephorus ;  and  among  orators,  Hypereides,  Aeschines  and 
Lycurgus,  as  easier  to  understand  and  to  imitate  than  the  great 
masters,  Demosthenes  and  Lysias.  Beside  the  ancient  Attic 
orators,  notwithstanding  the  opinion  of  the  rigid  Atticists  of  the 
day  (tw v  7rdw  aKpL/3d)v),  even  recent  rhetoricians  might  be  studied 
with  advantage.  Lastly,  among  the  ‘  Socratics  ’,  he  specially 
recommends  Xenophon,  adding  that  Xenophon’s  harangues  in 
the  Anabasis  sometimes  moved  him  to  tears  {Or.  18)1. 

From  Dion  Chrysostom  we  turn  to  one  of  the  most  versatile 
and  prolific  of  his  literary  contemporaries.  Plutarch, 

,1  ,  Plutarch 

who  was  born  at  Chaeroneia  between  45  and  50  a. d., 
was  already  familiar  with  the  poetry  of  Greece,  when,  after  attain¬ 
ing  the  age  of  19,  he  left  his  Boeotian  home  to  spend  several 
years  in  Athens.  He  there  studied  rhetoric,  mathematics  and, 
above  all,  philosophy,  especially  that  of  Plato,  under  the  guidance 
of  Ammonius.  He  afterwards  visited  Egypt,  and  (under  Ves¬ 
pasian)  spent  a  considerable  time  in  Rome,  where  his  lectures 
on  philosophy  were  attended  by  leading  Romans,  such  as  Arulenus 
Rusticus.  He  also  explored  various  parts  of  Italy,  including  the 
battle-field  of  Bedriacum  in  the  North2.  After  his  travels  he 
returned  to  his  home  and  there  passed  the  remainder  of  his  long 
life,  only  leaving  it  occasionally  for  Athens  or  Delphi,  or  for  the 
warm  baths  of  Thermopylae  or  of  Aedepsus  in  Euboea.  He 
died,  probably  under  Hadrian,  about  125  a.d. 

As  a  strong  adherent  of  the  Platonic  philosophy,  he  discusses 

1  On  Dion  in  general,  cp.  von  Arnim’s  critical  ed.  (1893-6),  and  his  Leben 
und  Werke  des  Dio  von  Prusa  (1898);  also  E.  Weber  in  Leipz.  Stud.  (1887); 
Christ,  §  5203;  Croiset,  v  466 — 483  ;  Egger,  440 — 455  ;  and  Saintsbury,  i  109 — 

”3* 

2  Otho,  1 4.  His  guide  on  this  occasion  was  an  archaeologist  of  consular 
rank,  Mestrius  Florus, — the  same  who,  at  the  table  of  Vespasian,  urged  the 
emperor  to  say  platistra  instead  of  plostra,  and  on  the  following  day  was 
accordingly  greeted  by  the  emperor  as  Flaunts  ( <p\avpos )  instead  of  Florus 
(Suet.  Vesp.  22). 


296 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


(p.  1012  f)  the  origin  of  the  soul  as  described  in  the  Timaeus , 
and  deals  with  minor  points  connected  with  Plato,  in  the  ten 
chapters  of  his  ‘Platonic  Questions’.  The  vision  of  Er  at  the 
close  of  the  Republic  has  its  counterpart  at  the  close  of  the 
De  Sera  Numinis  Vindicta.  The  fact  that  ‘no  infant  smiles  in 
the  waking  moments  of  its  first  few  weeks,  but  only  when  it 
falls  asleep’,  is  explained  in  one  of  the  fragments  of  his  De  Anima 
(p.  736)  ‘by  the  Platonic  doctrine  that  the  transplanted  soul  is 
disturbed  and  terrified  by  the  aspect  of  this  world,  which  it  regards 
with  displeasure,  while  in  sleep  it  recalls  its  happier  state  with 
God  and  smiles  at  the  glorious  vision’1.  He  often  attacks  the 
views  of  the  Stoics  and  Epicureans,  though  he  not  unfrequently 
borrows  from  the  Stoics  and  disagrees  with  Plato.  Of  the  strictly 
philosophical  works  of  Aristotle  he  seems  to  have  read  little; 
but,  in  the  collection  and  classification  of  facts  and  in  the  encyclo¬ 
paedic  pursuit  of  knowledge,  he  shows  the  influence  of  the  Peri¬ 
patetic  school ;  he  certainly  quotes  many  details  from  Aristotle, 
Theophrastus  and  Straton.  His  religion  finds  its  natural 
centre  in  Delphi ;  he  discusses  the  mysterious  letter  E  inscribed 
above  the  portal  of  the  Delphian  temple,  concluding  with  the 
explanation  given  by  his  own  master,  Ammonius,  that  the  symbol 
of  the  letter  stands  for  its  name  (d)  and  thus  means  ‘  Thou  art  ’, — 
the  worshipper’s  tribute  to  the  Being  of  the  God  whose  temple 
he  approaches.  In  the  ‘  Pythian  Oracles  ’  he  inquires  into  the 
reason  why  Apollo,  who  of  old  was  wont  to  respond  in  verse, 
now  uttered  his  oracles  in  prose  alone.  The  dialogue  on  the 
‘  Cessation  of  Oracles  ’  includes  much  on  the  subject  of  demons, 
as  beings  intermediate  between  gods  and  men,  and  is  lit  up  with 
a  strange  light  by  the  simple  yet  mysterious  legends  of  the  old 
prophet  of  the  Erythrean  Sea,  of  the  genii  of  the  British  Isles, 
and  of  the  death  of  Pan,  a  theme  which  has  since  been  made 
memorable  by  the  Muse  of  Milton  and  also  by  a  later  Muse. 

The  Miscellanies  of  Plutarch,  commonly  called  the  Moralia , 
include  several  works  not  unconnected  with  literary  criticism ; 
but,  even  in  literary  criticism,  Plutarch  is  apt  to  aim  mainly  at 
moral  edification.  His  comments  on  Homer  (* OfxrjpiKai  /xcXcVai) 
survive  in  fragments  only ;  those  on  the  Boeotian  Hesiod’s  Works 

1  Mahaffy’s  Greek  World  tinder  Roman  Sway,  p.  292  f. 


XVII.] 


PLUTARCH. 


297 


and  Days,  as  may  be  inferred  from  the  passages  preserved  by 
Proclus  and  Tzetzes,  must  have  been  a  medley  of  minute  observa¬ 
tion  and  moral  disquisition.  Some  of  his  notes  on  the  didactic 
poems  of  Aratus  and  Nicander  may  be  seen  in  the  scholia  on 
those  authors,  but  they  are  solely  on  matters  of  natural  science. 
Of  the  works  which  have  reached  us  in  a  more  complete  form, 
the  tract  ‘  On  the  Education  of  Children  ’,  which  was  probably 
not  written  by  Plutarch,  is  very  interesting,  but  is  only  slightly 
connected  with  literature.  ‘  How  a  young  man  should  study 
poetry  ’  is  a  title  full  of  promise,  which  only  ends  in  disappoint¬ 
ment.  The  author  is  oppressed  by  the  consciousness  that,  in 
matters  of  morality,  the  old  Greek  poets  are  not  entirely  safe 
guides  for  young  persons ;  but,  instead  of  pointing  out  that  the 
Homeric  poems  represent  a  primitive  and  undeveloped  stage  of 
moral  and  religious  thought,  he  struggles  to  find  in  the  old  poets 
salutary  examples  of  conduct  and  precepts  of  action,  and  only 
succeeds  in  this  effort  by  means  of  fanciful  interpretations1. 

‘  You  cannot  prevent  clever  boys  from  reading  poetry,  so  you 
must  make  the  best  of  it.  It  is  like  the  head  of  an  octopus,  very 
nice  to  eat,  nourishing  enough,  but  apt  to  give  restless  and 
fantastic  dreams  (p.  15  b).  So  you  must  be  careful  to  administer 
paedagogic  correctives,  and  to  put  the  right  meaning  on  dangerous 
things’2.  Plutarch  has  in  fact  no  pretensions  to  literary  criticism; 
he  is  simply  a  moralist  bent  on  compelling  all  literature  to  minister 
to  edification.  He  is,  however,  entitled  to  our  gratitude  for 
preserving  here  and  elsewhere  many  passages  from  the  poets, 
which  would  otherwise  have  been  lost  to  posterity.  As  a  native 
of  Boeotia,  Plutarch  takes  a  special  interest  in  citations  from  the 
Theban  poet,  Pindar.  But  even  the  merit  of  preserving  for  us 
the  relics  of  early  Greek  poetry  is  absent  from  the  treatise  ‘On 
Study  ’  (7rept  tov  cLKovuv),  which  merely  inculcates  a  calm  and 
dispassionate  attentiveness,  and  even  warns  the  student  against 
taking  any  special  pleasure  in  style.  ‘A  man  who  will  not  attend 
to  a  useful  statement,  because  its  style  is  not  Attic,  is  like  a  man 

1  Cp.  J.  Oakesmith’s  Religion  of  Plutarch,  pp.  69,  176  (Longmans,  1902). 
Plutarch  is  here  borrowing  from  the  Stoics  and  Peripatetics  (A.  Schlemm,  De 
fontibus  Phitarchi  De  Audiendis  Poetis,  1893). 

2  Saintsbury,  i  140. 


298 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 

who  refuses  a  wholesome  medicine  because  it  is  not  offered  him 
in  a  jar  of  Attic  manufacture’1.  Literature  is  to  Plutarch  a  whole¬ 
some  medicine,  and  not  a  source  of  enthusiasm,  a  fountain  of 
refreshment,  a  well-spring  of  delight. 

It  is  uncertain  whether  the  treatise  On  the  Malignity  of 
Herodotus  was  written  by  Plutarch.  It  begins  and  ends  with 
commendations  of  Herodotus  as  a  ready  writer,  and  the  possessor 
of  a  charming  and  graceful  style.  It  also  praises  him  as  a  good 
judge  of  character,  but  it  repeatedly  sets  him  below  Thucydides 
as  a  historian,  and  cites  a  large  number  of  passages  to  prove  what 
the  writer  regards  as  his  bad  temper,  spite  and  uncharitableness. 
In  the  centuries  that  had  passed  since  the  Persian  wars,  orators 
and  rhetoricians  had  diffused  a  kind  of  glamour  over  the  memories 
of  the  glorious  days  of  Greece,  and  the  historian  whose  picture  of 
the  past  included  shade  as  well  as  light,  was  unpopular  with  those 
who  had  deceived  themselves  into  the  belief  that  an  undimmed 
and  unbroken  splendour  rested  on  the  victorious  conflict  between 
the  Greeks  and  the  Barbarians.  Even  in  Plutarch’s  own  days 
the  victory  of  Plataea,  in  which  the  Thebans  had  no  part,  was 
still  commemorated  on  the  spot  where  it  had  been  won  ( Aristides , 
19,  21). 

In  a  treatise,  which  has  reached  us  in  an  imperfect  form 
(p.  853),  Plutarch  shows  a  high  appreciation  of  the  merits  of 
Menander,  while  he  is  shocked  at  the  occasional  coarseness  of 
Aristophanes,  whom  he  refuses  to  regard  as  a  moral  teacher.  He 
considers  Aristophanes  as  vulgar  (</>oprtKos,  /3avavoro<s)  and  theatrical 
(Ov/AeXLKos) ;  Menander  as  graceful,  sententious  and  sensible. 
The  latter  is  compared  to  a  breezy  and  shady  meadow,  brightened 
with  flowers,  on  which  the  eye  can  rest  with  a  sense  of  repose. 
Plutarch  is  quite  unconscious  of  the  genius  of  Aristophanes,  and 
can  find  no  cause  for  the  poet’s  great  reputation  for  ‘  cleverness  ’ 
(Segiorrjs).  •  If  passages  from  the  old  Attic  Comedy  are  recited 
at  a  banquet,  every  guest  must  be  attended  by  a  grammarian  to 
explain  the  personal  allusions  ( Quaest .  Conv.  vii  8,  3  §  5). 

In  the  nine  books  of  his  Convivial  Questions  the  literary 
element  is  but  slightly  apparent.  In  arranging  your  guests  at 
table,  he  would  have  you  place  ‘the  eager  learner  beside  the 

1  c.  9;  Saintsbury,  i  141. 


XVII.] 


PLUTARCH. 


299 


distinguished  scholar’  (i  2,  6).  He  inquires  why  A  is  the  first 
letter  of  the  alphabet  (ix  2).  He  discusses  the  number  of  the 
Muses  (ix  14)  and  the  three  kinds  of  Dances  (ix  15),  the  custom 
of  wearing  garlands  at  dinner,  the  material  of  the  victor’s  crown 
in  the  Isthmian  games  (v  3),  the  question  whether  prizes  for 
poetry  were  of  ancient  date  (v  2),  and  why  it  was  that  the 
dramatic  and  artistic  representation  of  things  painful  was  pleasant 
(v  1).  In  discoursing  on  the  art  of  conversation,  he  draws  many  of 
his  illustrations  from  Homer  (ii  1).  In  connexion  with  Homer, 
he  inquires  why  it  was  that,  in  the  order  of  the  games,  boxing 
came  before  wrestling  and  running  (ii  5);  and  what  was  the 
exact  meaning  of  £<opore/oov  (v  4)  and  dy\a6KapTro<; ;  and  of 
v7T€p<f>\oLa,  as  an  epithet  of  apple-trees  in  Empedocles  (v  8). 
In  the  letter  of  consolation  addressed  to  his  wife,  he  finds  fault 
with  critics  who  ‘collect  and  gather  together  all  the  lame  and 
defective  verses  of  Homer,  which  are  but  few  in  number,  and 
in  the  meantime  pass  over  an  infinite  sort  of  others,  which  were 
by  him  most  excellently  made’  (p.  61 1)1.  In  the  introduction 
to  the  dialogue  De  Defectu  Oraculoru?n  points  of  grammar,  such 
as  the  question  whether  /3d\\(o  loses  a  X  in  the  future,  and  what 
is  the  positive  of  x^Pov  and  /SIXtlov,  are  described  as  causing  the 
disputants  to  contract  their  brows  and  contort  their  features ; 
while  other  topics  can  be  discussed  with  a  calm  and  unruffled 
mien  (p.  412  f). 

Plutarch  is  mainly  a  moralist,  not  only  in  his  so-called 
Moralia ,  but  also  in  his  Lives ,  with  their  vivid  moral  portraiture, 
which  made  Montaigne  call  them  his  ‘  breviary  ’,  and  Madame 
Roland  ‘the  pasture  of  great  souls’2.  Several  of  his  Lives ,  e.g. 
his  Pericles  and  his  Caesar ,  his  Demosthenes  and  his  Cicero ,  have 
a  literary  as  well  as  a  historical  interest ;  but  it  is  disappointing 
to  find  that,  at  the  moment  when  we  expect  some  literary  criticism 
in  the  comparison  between  the  two  greatest  orators  of  Greece 
and  Rome,  Plutarch  (notwithstanding  the  interest  in  Latin  rites 
and  customs  shown  in  his  Roman  Questions')  shirks  the  task  on 
the  ground  of  his  imperfect  knowledge  of  Latin  ( Dem .  2);  he 
actually  rebukes  Caecilius  for  instituting  such  a  comparison 
(ib.  3) ;  and,  even  in  the  case  of  the  Greek  orator,  offers  no 

1  Trench,  Plutarch ,  p.  27.  2  ib.  p.  34  f. 


300 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


criticism  on  his  style.  His  Life  of  Cicero  (24,  40)  implies  some 
acquaintance  (either  direct  or  indirect)  with  Cicero’s  philosophical 
works.  His  knowledge  of  Latin  has  been  discussed  by  Weissen- 
berger1,  who  defends  him  from  some  of  the  attacks  of  Volkmann. 
His  Lives  of  Galba  and  Otho  were  founded  either  on  Tacitus 
or  on  some  authority  common  to  both2.  In  his  Life  of  Lucullus 
(c.  39)  we  find  his  only  direct  quotation  from  Latin  literature 
(Horace,  Ep.  i  6,  45),  but  his  description  of  Rome  as  tw 
avOpiDirivuiv  epywv  to  koXXottov  ( De  Fortu?ia  Rom.  316  e)  is 
possibly  a  reminiscence  of  Virgil’s  rerum  pulcherrima  Roma 
{Georg,  ii  534)3.  His  Roman  Questions ,  in  which  Ovid’s  Fasti 
are  never  quoted,  are  partly  founded  on  Varro  and  Juba;  and 
his  Greek  Questions  on  Aristotle. 

On  the  whole,  Plutarch  cannot  be  seriously  regarded  as  a 
literary  critic,  but  he  fully  deserves  the  credit  of  being  a  lover 
of  literature.  Literature  is  fully  recognised  in  his  fragmentary 
discourse  on  the  question  whether  the  Athenians  were  more 
glorious  in  war  or  in  wisdom ;  and,  in  attacking  the  Epicureans, 
he  warmly  defends  the  cause  of  letters.  His  treatise  on  the 
profit  which  a  young  man  may  obtain  from  the  writings  of  the 
poets  supplied  Basil  with  many  hints  for  his  treatise  on  the  gain 
to  be  derived  from  the  study  of  heathen  authors.  Montaigne 
‘  can  hardly  do  without  Plutarch  ’.  In  Southey’s  Doctor  the 
translation  of  the  Moralia  by  Philemon  Holland  is  one  of  the 
few  books  for  which  Daniel  Dove  finds  room  on  his  shelves. 
He  is  the  theme  of  more  than  250  allusions  or  direct  references 
on  the  part  of  Jeremy  Taylor;  his  Moralia  occupied  24  years 
of  the  life  of  Daniel  Wyttenbach,  and  had  an  important  influence 
on  the  career  of  Neander4.  ‘Plutarch’,  says  Emerson5,  ‘will  be 
perpetually  rediscovered  from  time  to  time  as  long  as  books  last’6. 

1  .Die  Spr ache  Plutarchs ,  1895. 

2  Cp.  Schanz,  Rom.  Litt.  §  438. 

3  Oakesmith’s  Religion  of  Plutarch,  p.  8411. 

4  Trench,  pp.  74,  108  f,  121. 

5  Essay  prefixed  to  translation  of  Plutarch’s  Morals,  revised  by  Prof. 
W.  W.  Goodwin  (1870);  see  also  Essay  on  Books  in  Society  and  Solitude , 
p.  451  of  Prose  Works,  ed.  1889. 

6  On  Plutarch,  cp.  the  monographs  by  Greard  (1866)  and  Volkmann  (1869), 
R.  C.  Trench’s  Four  Lectures  (1873)  and  J.  Oakesmith’s  Religion  of  Plutarch ; 


XVII.] 


FAVORINUS. 


301 


Plutarch  and  Dion  Chrysostom  have  points  of  contact  with 
Favorinus  of  Arles  (born  c.  75  a.d.),  who  was  a 

.  .  .  Favorinus 

pupil  of  Dion  and  a  friend  of  Fronto  and  Plutarch. 

He  visited  Ephesus,  but  lived  mainly  in  Rome,  where  his  lectures 
were  attended  by  Herodes  Atticus.  He  is  much  admired  by 
Gellius.  He  was  one  of  the  most  learned  men  of  the  age  of 
Hadrian,  whose  favour  he  enjoyed  for  a  time ;  and  he  appears 
to  have  died  under  Antoninus  Pius.  He  vied  with  Plutarch  in 
the  number  and  variety  of  his  writings,  which  included  philosophy, 
history,  philology  and  rhetoric ;  but  he  was  more  of  a  rhetorician 
than  a  philosopher.  In  philosophy  he  was  a  Sceptic.  Besides 
several  semi-philosophical  works,  he  wrote  at  least  five  books  of 
Memoirs ,  and  twenty-four  of  Miscellanies.  The  latter  is  described 
by  Photius  as  a  store-house  of  erudition,  and  both  are  among  the 
authorities  followed  by  Diogenes  Laertius1.  He  survives  in  frag¬ 
ments  only ;  but  he  may  here  serve  to  mark  the  transition  from 
Dion  and  Plutarch  to  the  Sophists  and  the  Atticists  of  the  age 
of  the  Antonines,  who  will  be  briefly  noticed  in  the  next  chapter. 

also  Christ,  §§  470 — 485s;  Croiset,  v  484 — 538;  Egger,  409 — 425;  and  Saints- 
bury,  i  137—146. 

1  Christ,  §  5103;  Croiset,  v  539  f. 


CHAPTER  XVIII. 


GREEK  SCHOLARSHIP  IN  THE  SECOND  CENTURY. 


The  second 
century. 
Hadrian 


For  nearly  two-thirds  of  the  second  century  the  Roman 
Empire  was  under  the  beneficent  rule  of  Hadrian 
(i  17 — 138)  and  the  Antonines  (138 — 180).  Hadrian, 
the  patron  of  Greek  literature  in  general  and  of 
rhetoric  in  particular,  was  specially  devoted  to  Athens,  where  he 
had  distinguished  himself  as  archon  under  the  rule  of  Trajan. 
After  he  had  ascended  the  throne,  he  completed  the  magnificent 
temple  of  the  Olympieum,  which  had  been  begun  by  Peisistratus 
650  years  before.  In  the  region  north  of  the  Acropolis,  he  built 
the  ‘  Stoa  ’  which  bore  his  name,  with  its  walls  and  colonnades  of 
Phrygian  marble,  its  roof  glittering  with  gold  and  alabaster,  and 
its  chambers  stored  with  books,  and  beautified  with  paintings  and 
statues1.  The  bust  of  Sophocles,  and  the  marble  personifications 
of  ‘the  Iliad’  and  ‘the  Odyssey,’  found  in  the  neighbourhood, 
may  once  have  adorned  the  Library  in  these  buildings.  M.  Aure¬ 
lius  established  at  Athens  a  school  of  Philosophy,  with  a  pro¬ 
fessorial  chair  for  each  of  the  four  sects,  the  Academics,  Peripatetics, 
Stoics  and  Epicureans ;  and  a  school  of  Rhetoric  with  two  chairs, 
the  ‘  political  ’  and  the  ‘  sophistical  ’,  the  holder  of  the  latter  being 
appointed  by  the  emperor  and  set  over  the  whole  of  the  University. 
The  selection  of  the  four  professors  of  Philosophy  was  assigned 
to  Herodes  Atticus  (103 — 179),  who,  like  Hadrian,  was  one  of 
the  greatest  benefactors  of  Athens.  His  lavish 
Atticu°sdeS  liberality  caused  the  Panathenaic  Stadium  on  the 
Ilissus  to  gleam  with  marble  from  the  quarries  of 
Pentelicus,  and  (about  the  time  when  Pausanias  was  writing  his 


1  Pausanias,  i  18,  9. 


CHAP.  XVIII.]  HADRIAN.  HERODES.  M.  AURELI.  303 


M.  Aurelius 


Description  of  Greece )  raised  a  new  Odeum  with  a  roof  of  cedar 
to  the  south  of  the  ascent  to  the  Acropolis.  He  was  the  most 
brilliant  of  the  Sophists  of  the  age ;  he  could  refute  the  pretended 
Stoic  by  means  of  appropriate  passages  from  Epictetus ;  and,  in 
giving  alms  to  a  Cynic  impostor,  who  had  only  ‘the  beard  and 
the  staff’  of  his  profession,  he  could  quote  an  effective  precedent 
from  Musonius1.  His  house  at  Athens  and  his  villa,  amid  the 
olive-groves  and  water-courses  of  Cephisia,  were  frequented  by 
statesmen,  philosophers  and  rhetoricians3;  and  among  these  last 
was  the  eminent  rhetorician  Aristides.  In  the  age  of  the  Antonines 
a  remarkable  proof  of  proficiency  in  Greek  was  given  by  M. 
Aurelius,  the  ‘  Stoic  on  the  throne  ’,  in  the  famous 
Meditations  (ra  ct?  iavroo),  which  (as  it  happens) 
include  a  single  chapter  on  the  moral  effect  of  Attic  tragedy  and 
comedy  (xi  6),  while  they  represent  in  general  the  highest  standard 
of  morality  attained  prior  to  Neo-Platonism  and  apart  from 
Christianity.  The  author  of  the  Meditatio?is  gave  early  encourage¬ 
ment  to  the  precocious  genius  of  the  rhetorician  Hermogenes  ; 
among  the  preceptors  of  the  adoptive  brother  of  M.  Aurelius, 
L.  Verus,  were  Hephaestion  and  Harpocration ;  while  the  tutor 
of  Commodus  was  the  grammarian  Pollux,  whom  his  former  pupil 
appointed  professor  of  Rhetoric  at  Athens.  During  this  century 
there  was  no  lack  of  patronage  for  Scholarship  at  Athens  and 
Rome ;  but,  meanwhile,  the  greatest  grammarian  of  the  age, 
Apollonius  Dyscolus,  was  living  in  poverty  in  Alexandria.  His 
son,  Herodian,  lived  in  Rome,  and  dedicated  to  M.  Aurelius  his 
great  work  on  accentuation. 

In  the  second  century  an  interest  in  the  ancient  epics  of 
Greece  is  attested  by  a  composition  in  prose  pur- 
porting  to  give  an  account  ot  a  poetic  competition  torianS)’  etc 
between  Homer  and  Hesiod3.  Verse  is  represented 
by  the  didactic  poems  of  Dionysius  Periegetes  and  Oppian,  by 
the  hymn  to  Nemesis  by  Mesomedes  and  the  fables  of  Babrius ; 
history,  by  Appian  (f.  160)  and  by  Arrian  (ft.  130),  the  modern 
Xenophon,  who,  with  his  ‘  chameleon-like  ’ 4  style,  imitates  Herodotus 

1  Gellius,  i  2,  3 — 13;  ix  2.  2  ib.  i  2,  2. 

3  ayuv,  printed  in  Goettling’s  Hesiod ,  pp.  241 — 254,  and  in  Rzach’s. 

4  Kaibel  in  Hermes ,  xx  (1875)  508. 


304 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


and  Thucydides  as  well  as  Xenophon  and  Ctesias ;  military 
history,  by  Polyaenus  (Jl.  161-9)  1  geography  and  astronomy,  by 
Claudius  Ptolemaeus  of  Alexandria ;  while  topography  and  bio¬ 
graphy  were  combined  in  the  ‘cities  and  their  celebrities’  of 
Philon  of  Byblus  (c.  64 — 14 1),  and  the  chronology  of  the  Olympic 
Games  was  studied  by  Phlegon  of  Tralles.  In  the  age  of  Trajan 
and  Hadrian  (if  not  at  an  earlier  date)  Ptolemaeus  Chennus  of 
Alexandria,  besides  writing  a  historical  drama  called  the  Sphinx , 
and  an  epic  poem  in  twenty-four  books  entitled  Anthomerus , 
compiled  a  vast  collection  of  miscellaneous  anecdotes  which  was 
known  to  Photius1.  He  has  acquired  a  new  importance  from 
the  fact  that  he  is  now  regarded  as  the  author  of  a  lost  treatise  on 
the  Life  and  Works  of  Aristotle ,  dedicated  to  one  Gallus,  and 
ascribed  to  ‘  Ptolemaeus  ’  in  an  Arabic  list  of  the  Works,  which 
is  derived  from  a  Syriac  rendering  of  the  Greek  original2. 

In  the  time  of  the  Antonines  Archaeology  and  Topography 
were  the  theme  of  Pausanias,  who  was  still  engaged  on 

Pausanias  .  .  .  ° 

his  Description  of  Greece  in  173  a. d.  (v  i,  2),  having 
written  his  account  of  Attica  before,  and  that  of  Achaia  after, 
the  building  of  the  Odeum  of  Herodes  Atticus.  From  his  home 
in  Asia  Minor,  near  the  river  Hermus  and  mount  Sipylus,  he 
travelled  over  Greece,  Italy  and  Sardinia,  and  even  visited  Syria, 
and  the  oracle  of  Ammon  in  the  Libyan  desert.  His  work  is 
invaluable  for  its  varied  information  on  the  mythology,  topography, 
sculpture  and  architecture  of  ancient  Greece;  and  its  utility  has 
been  recognised  in  the  archaeological  exploration  of  Athens  and 
Argolis,  of  Delphi  and  Olympia.  It  is  neither  a  manual  of 
archaeology,  nor  a  guide-book,  but  a  volume  of  reminiscences 
of  travel.  It  cannot  reasonably  be  doubted  that  it  is  founded 
largely  on  the  author’s  own  experience ;  but  there  has  been  much 
discussion  as  to  the  degree  of  his  indebtedness  to  authorities  such 
as  Polemon  of  Ilium  in  archaeology  (supra  p.  152),  Artemidorus 
of  Ephesus  (fl.  100  b.c.)  in  topography,  and  Istrus  of  Paphos 
(a  pupil  of  Callimachus)  in  history.  He  cites  Euripides  far  less 
often  than  the  ancient  epic  poets ;  and  almost  all  that  we  know 

1  Cod.  190,  naivT)  laropLa. 

2  Christ,  §  5593,  and  esp.  A.  Baumstark,  Aristoteles  bei  den  Syrern,  1900. 
The  list  is  given  in  Arist.  Frag.  pp.  18 — 22  Rose. 


XVIII.] 


PAUSANIAS.  ARISTIDES. 


305 


(or  think  we  know)  of  the  Messenian  wars  is  due  to  his  having 
preserved  for  us  the  substance  of  the  lost  epic  of  the  Alexandrian 
poet,  Rhianus1. 

Of  the  Sophists  who  lived  under  the  Antonines,  one  of  the 
most  celebrated  was  Aelius  Aristides  (129 — 189), 
who  studied  oratory  at  Pergamon  and  Athens,  be-  AristidesCianS’ 
sides  visiting  Rhodes  and  travelling  in  Egypt.  The 
storms,  which  he  encountered  on  his  voyage  to  Italy  in  155, 
shattered  his  health  and  compelled  him  to  live  as  a  valetudinarian 
for  many  years  at  Pergamon  and  Smyrna.  When  Smyrna  was 
ruined  by  an  earthquake  (178),  he  obtained  the  aid  of  M.  Aurelius 
for  its  restoration.  At  Athens  he  delivered  his  Panathenaic  dis¬ 
course,  with  its  rhetorical  review  of  Athenian  history.  History 
he  regards  as  holding  a  position  intermediate  between  poetry  and 
rhetoric  (ii  513) ;  rhetoric  he  defends  from  Plato’s  attacks  in  the 
Phaedrus  and  Gorgias,  while  he  shields  Miltiades,  Themistocles, 
Cimon  and  Pericles  from  the  contempt  with  which  they  had  been 
treated  in  the  latter  of  those  dialogues.  He  is  also  the  author  of 
several  fictitious  discourses  on  events  in  Greek  history,  and  of  a 
prose  paraphrase  of  the  speech  of  Achilles  in  the  ninth  Iliad . 
Lastly,  he  has  left  us  a  pleasant  picture  of  a  learned  and  accom¬ 
plished  lecturer  on  the  ancient  Classics  in  the  person  of  a  teacher 
of  M.  Aurelius  named  Alexander  of  Cotyaeum,  whose  countrymen 
are  assured  that  he  will  be  gratefully  welcomed  by  the  authors  of 
old  in  the  world  below,  where  he  will  be  assigned  an  enduring 
throne  as  the  best  of  their  interpreters  (Or.  12).  Unhappily,  the 
only  work  of  Alexander  mentioned  by  Aristides  is  vaguely  stated 
to  be  on  the  subject  of  Homer,  and  he  is  now  represented  solely 
by  a  fragment  on  a  point  of  textual  criticism  in  Herodotus2.  In 
editions  of  Aristides  we  find  two  compositions  inspired  by  the 
Leptines  and  proving  an  intimate  acquaintance  with  the  text  of 
Demosthenes  ;  but  their  authorship  is  not  quite  certain 3.  In 

1  Christ,  §  5013;  Croiset,  v  679 — 683;  Kalkmann,  P.  der  Perieget  (1886); 
Gurlitt  and  Bencker  (1890);  Heberdey,  die  Reisen  des  P.  (1894);  Frazer’s 
Pausanias  (1898);  ed.  Hitzig  et  Blumner,  1896-  . 

2  Quoted  by  Porphyry,  p.  288,  Schrader. 

3  They  are  not  found  in  the  mss  of  Aristides,  and  are  only  attributed  to  him 
on  the  ground  of  a  passage  in  his  Speech  against  Capito,  p.  315  (H.  E.  Foss, 

1841). 

.  S. 


20 


3°6 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


style  Aristides  is  one  of  the  strictest  Atticists  of  his  time,  his 
favourite  models  being  Thucydides,  Plato,  Xenophon,  Isocrates 
and  Demosthenes.  To  rival  Demosthenes  was  his  main  ambition, 
and  he  had  the  satisfaction  of  seeing  in  a  dream  the  apparition  of 
a  philosopher  who  assured  him  that  he  had  even  surpassed  that 
orator  (i  325).  As  a  successful  imitator  of  the  Attic  writers  he  is 
highly  praised  by  Phrynichus 1 ;  his  copiousness  and  force  are 
lauded  by  Longinus2;  by  later  rhetoricians,  such  as  Libanius  and 
Himerius,  he  is  regarded  as  a  classic ;  his  fame  descended  to  the 
Byzantine  age,  in  which  Thomas  Magister  classes  him  alone  with 
Homer,  Thucydides,  Demosthenes  and  Plato ;  and  the  study  of 
his  speeches  in  the  schools  is  still  attested  by  the  extant  scholia 
and  prolegomena.  His  love  of  literature  on  its  rhetorical  side 
is  frank  and  outspoken  ;  ‘  speeches  ’  (he  tells  us)  ‘  are  his  sole 
delight’;  ‘the  whole  gain  and  sum  of  life  is  oratorical  occupation’3 4. 
In  his  apology  for  the  blunder  of  commending  himself  in  the 
course  of  an  address  to  a  deity  (Or.  49),  he  justifies  himself  b^ 
many  quotations  from  orators  and  poets,  and  from  Solon  in 
particular ;  but  he  shows  no  taste  for  literary  criticism.  In  a 
history  of  Scholarship  his  main  claim  to  notice  rests  on  his  suc¬ 
cessful  study  of  the  ancient  models  of  Attic  prose,  and  also  on 
the  fact  that  he  has  preserved  for  us  (in  Or.  49)  the  longest 
passage  from  the  iambic  poems  of  Solon  which  was  known  to  us 
until  the  recovery  of  Aristotle’s  Constitution  of  Athens  \ 

Inferior  to  xAristides  is  the  ‘Platonic  philosopher’,  Maximus 
of  Tyre  (fl.  180),  who  lectured  in  many  lands  (in¬ 
cluding  Phrygia  and  Arabia),  and  paid  several  visits 
to  Rome.  All  his  forty-one  discourses  are  written 
in  the  affected  and  over-symmetrical  style  of  Gorgias,  with  an 
inordinate  fancy  for  the  accumulation  of  synonyms.  As  a  Platonist 
of  eclectic  tastes,  while  he  opposes  the  Epicureans,  he  borrows  at 
will  from  the  Peripatetics,  Stoics  and  Neo-Pythagoreans;  and,  like 
Plutarch,  he  may  be  regarded  as  a  precursor  of  the  Neo-Platonists. 


Maximus 

Tyrius 


1  ap.  Photium,  p.  101  A  18. 

2  Dindorf’s  Aristides,  iii  741. 

3  Canter  in  Dindorf’s  Aristides,  iii  779,  quoted  by  Saintsbury,  i  ii4f. 

4  On  Aristides,  see  the  editions  of  Dindorf  (1829)  and  Keil  (1899) ;  and  cp. 
Christ,  §  52i3f;  Croiset,  v  572 — 581;  and  Saintsbury,  i  113 — 6- 


XVIII.] 


MAXIMUS  TYRIUS. 


307 


But,  while  Plutarch  is  a  genuine  philosopher  and  a  wise  counsellor 
on  the  conduct  of  life,  Maximus  is  merely  a  rhetorician,  who 
happens  to  write  by  preference  on  philosophic  subjects.  The 
subjects  themselves  are  not  uninteresting :  e.g.  ‘  Does  Homer  re¬ 
present  any  special  philosophic  school?’  (32);  ‘On  Plato’s  God’ 
(17);  ‘On  the  Daimonion  of  Socrates’  (14,  15);  ‘On  Socratic 
Love’ (24 — 27);  ‘Was  Plato  justified  in  banishing  Homer  from 
his  Republic?’  (23);  ‘Have  poets  or  philosophers  discoursed 
better  concerning  the  Gods?’  (to);  ‘Are  the  liberal  arts  con¬ 
ducive  to  virtue?’  (37).  He  discusses  the  influence  of  music  and 
geometry ;  he  is  fond  of  quoting  from  Homer  and  Sappho  (e.g.  24, 
9),  and  has  contributed  to  the  restitution  of  the  fair  fame  of  the 
Lesbian  poetess1;  he  eulogises  Homer  for  his  breadth  of  view  and 
his  varied  knowledge,  but  describes  Aratus  as  no  less  famous  (30) ; 
he  sees  little  difference  between  poetry  and  philosophy;  he  favours 
the  allegorical  interpretation  of  poetry ;  has  a  high  admiration  for 
Plato  (17,  1;  27,  4);  and,  in  discussing  Plato’s  attitude  towards 
Homer,  insists  that  an  admiration  for  Plato  is  quite  compatible 
with  an  admiration  for  Homer.  On  the  whole,  we  are  bound 
to  admit  that,  so  far  as  regards  literary  criticism,  the  high 
expectations  raised  by  the  titles  of  his  lectures  only  end  in  dis¬ 
appointment2. 

The  brilliant  and  versatile  satirist,  Lucian  of  Samosata 
( c .  12K — c.  192),  who  includes  rhetoricians  and 

'  .  7  n  ...  Lucian 

sophists  among  the  many  themes  of  his  satire,  is 
himself  a  product  of  the  sophistical  and  rhetorical  education  of 
his  time.  Born  in  northern  Syria,  and  educated  in  Ionia,  he 
travelled  and  lectured  in  Asia  Minor,  Greece  and  Macedonia, 
and  even  in  Italy  and  Gaul ;  resided  for  some  twenty  years 
(c.  165 — 185)  at  Athens;  and,  towards  the  end  of  his  life,  held 
a  Government  appointment  in  Egypt. 

A  history  of  Scholarship  is  only  concerned  with  a  few  of  the 
four-score  writings  that  bear  his  name.  His  Judgement  of  the 
Vowels  (&LKrj  <f>o)vr)evTa)v),  which  throws  some  light  on  the  Attic 
Greek  of  his  day,  describes  a  lawsuit  brought  before  the  court 
of  the  vowels  by  the  letter  Sigma  against  the  letter  Tau,  com- 

1  Welcker’s  kl.  Schi-iften ,  ii  97. 

2  Christ,  §  5 1 13;  Croiset,  v  581 — 2;  Saintsbury,  i  117 — 8. 


20 — 2 


3°8 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


plaining  of  violent  ejectment  from  various  words  such  as  cnjfxepov, 
OaXacraa  and  ©ecrcraA.ia,  which  the  Atticists  of  the  time  pronounced 
Tr'/fj.epov,  OaXarra  and  ©erraAta.  His  satire  On  the  proper  manner 
of  writing  History  (77-cos  8 el  Icnoptav  o-vyypa</>eiv),  which  was  once 
much  admired,  is  an  attack  on  the  incompetent  historians,  who 
were  preparing  to  describe  the  Parthian  War  (which  ended  in  165) 
in  the  style  of  Herodotus  and  Thucydides.  This  attack  on  con¬ 
temporary  historians  is  veiled  under  the  disguise  of  advice  to  the 
historians  of  the  future.  The  two  great  requirements  of  the  true 
historian  (says  Lucian)  are  intelligence  (crvveo-is)  and  power  of 
expression  (kppcqveCa).  His  Parasite  is  a  parody  of  the  discussions 
held  by  rhetoricians  and  philosophers,  from  Plato  downwards,  on 
the  subject  of  rhetoric.  In  his  Lexiphanes  we  have  a  playful 
satire  on  the  Atticists  of  the  day,  and  on  their  fancy  for  inter¬ 
spersing  their  compositions  with  obsolete  phrases  borrowed  from 
the  old  Attic  authors.  A  specimen  of  this  kind  of  patch-work  is 
produced  by  Lexiphanes  himself,  who  is  severely  criticised,  and 
is  solemnly  admonished  to  reject  the  miserable  inventions  of 
modern  rhetoricians,  to  emulate  the  great  classical  writers  such 
as  Thucydides  and  Plato,  and  the  ancient  masters  of  tragedy  and 
comedy,  and,  above  all,  to  sacrifice  to  the  Graces  and  to  perspicuity. 
Lexiphanes  has  been  supposed1  to  be  a  satirical  representation  of 
Pollux,  the  lexicographer ;  but  the  latter  was  not  appointed  pro¬ 
fessor  of  rhetoric  at  Athens  until  the  reign  of  Commodus,  whereas 
the  Lexiphanes  was  apparently  one  of  Lucian’s  earlier  works 
(§  2 6)2.  His  Pseudologistes  (or  Solecist)  is  directed  against  gram¬ 
marians  who  lapsed  into  solecisms,  in  spite  of  a  pedantic  attention 
to  correctness  of  style.  Elsewhere,  he  writes  an  amusing  satire 
(. Adversus  Indoctum)  on  a  collector  of  books  in  handsome  bind¬ 
ings,  including  copies  of  Archilochus  and  Hipponax,  Eupolis  and 
Aristophanes,  Plato,  Antisthenes  and  Aeschines,  which  he  could 
neither  read  nor  understand.  In  the  Teacher  of  Orators  ( p-qropaiv 
SiSao-Ka/W)  Lucian  attacks  the  prevailing  type  of  instruction  in 
the  person  of  one  of  its  most  conspicuous  representatives,  some¬ 
times  identified  (as  in  the  Lexiphanes)  with  the  lexicographer 
Pollux.  In  the  same  spirit  as  in  that  dialogue,  Lucian  distinguishes 

1  By  the  Scholiasts  and  C.  F.  Ranke,  Pollux  u.  Lucian  (1831). 

2  Christ,  §  539s. 


XVIII.] 


LUCIAN. 


309 


between  the  two  paths  which  lead  to  the  attainment  of  rhetorical 
skill,  (1)  the  long  and  laborious  imitation  of  the  great  authors 
of  old,  such  as  Plato  and  Demosthenes ;  (2)  the  collection  of 
fashionable  phrases  for  ordinary  use  and  affected  archaisms  for 
occasional  adornment1 2.  Rhetoric  is  also  represented  in  his  Bis 
Accusatus ,  where  Lucian  is  accused  by  ‘  Rhetoric  ’  of  having 
deserted  her,  and  by  £  Dialogue  ’  of  having  disgraced  her.  In 
his  Conversation  with  Hesiod,  he  ridicules  the  ancient  poets  for 
pretending  to  be  inspired  interpreters  of  the  will  of  heaven. 
Lastly,  in  his  dialogue  On  Daiicing,  he  states  that,  as  an  inter¬ 
preter  of  the  poets,  an  accomplished  dancer  of  pantomime  ought 
to  know  Homer  and  Hesiod,  and  (above  all)  the  tragic  poets, 
by  heart. 

Lucian  singles  out,  in  the  literature  of  his  age,  the  defects 
which  were  due  to  an  affected  imitation  of  ancient  models ;  he 
ridicules  the  frivolity  of  the  rhetoricians,  and  the  pretentiousness 
of  the  historians  of  his  day ;  and  rallies  the  Atticists  for  their 
superstitious  cult  of  an  obsolete  phraseology.  He  is  himself  an 
Atticist  of  a  higher  though  far  from  perfect  type,  and  Cobet  has 
abundantly  shown,  quanto  opere  a  Graecitatis  aniiquae  dicendi 
sinceritate  desciverit  a.  His  verbal  familiarity  with  Greek  literature 
is  attested  by  his  constant  quotations  from  Homer,  Hesiod  and 
Pindar3,  and  his  frequent  reminiscences  of  Thucydides,  Xenophon, 
Plato  and  Demosthenes4.  The  encomium  on  that  orator  found 
among  his  writings,  shows  a  just  appreciation  of  the  patriotism  of 
Demosthenes,  but  is  wanting  in  wit,  and  is  probably  spurious. 
The  legend  of  the  Olympic  recitation  of  the  history  of  Herodotus 
is  found  in  the  writing  which  bears  that  historian’s  name.  Traces 
of  Horace5  and  Juvenal  have  been  detected  in  Lucian,  and  a 
passage  in  the  Germania  of  Tacitus  (§  3)  finds  its  parallel  in  the 
Method  of  writing  History  (§  60).  His  skill  as  a  critic  of  art 

1  Saintsbury,  i  151. 

2  Var.  Led.  300  f;  cp.  75  f. 

3  Ziegeler,  De  Luciano  poetarum  iiutice  et  imilatore  (1872). 

4  Brambs,  Citate  und  Reminiscenzen  bei  Lucian  (1888).  On  Lucian’s 
Atticism,  cp.  Du  Mesnil  (1867),  W.  Schmid,  Attikismus ,  i  221 — 5,  and 
Chabert  (1897). 

5  A.  Heinrich,  Lukian  u.  Horaz  (1885). 


3io 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


is  proved  by  his  Portraits  (EIkovcs)  and  his  Zeuxis .  In  his 
management  of  dialogue  he  exhibits  the  influence  of  Plato,  while 
his  genius  has  much  in  common  with  that  of  Aristophanes,  to 
whom  he  repeatedly  refers.  He  owes  something  also  to  the 
comedies  of  Cratinus,  and  to  the  satires  of  Menippus1.  In  his 
Prometheus  es  he  admits  that  he  has  ‘attempted  to  adjust  the 
philosophical  dialogue  to  something  like  the  tone  of  the  comic 
poets’,  and  to  avoid  the  faults  and  combine  the  excellences  of 
both2.  In  the  Byzantine  age 3  he  was  often  imitated ;  he  was 
also  a  favourite  author  during  the  Renaissance4;  and  the  travellers’ 
tales  of  his  True  History  have  beien  told  anew  in  various  forms  by 
Rabelais,  Cyrano  de  Bergerac,  and  Swift.  His  interest  in  the 
great  writers  of  Attic  prose  is  clearly  marked  ;  but  he  has  not 
sufficient  seriousness  of  purpose  or  stability  of  principle  to  be 
a  really  great  critic  of  classical  literature5. 

With  Lucian  we  may  associate  a  slightly  later  writer,  Alciphron, 
represented  in  the  fictitious  letters  of  Aristaenetus 

Alciphron 

(1  5  and  22)  as  one  of  the  correspondents  of  Lucian, 
whom  he  undoubtedly  imitates6.  His  own  imaginary  Letters  are 
inspired  by  the  Attic  Comedy  of  Philemon,  Diphilus  and 
Menander. 

The  Greek  of  Lucian  was  imitated  in  Latin  by  Apuleius  of 
Madaura  in  Africa,  who  wrote  in  the  times  of 
Antoninus  Pius  and  M.  Aurelius.  It  was  Lucian’s 
Ass  that  inspired  the  satiric  novel  known  as  the  Metamorphoses  of 
Apuleius,  which  includes  the  celebrated  myth  of  Cupid  and 
Psyche.  The  author’s  title  to  the  name  of  philosophus  Platonicus 
rests  on  his  minor  works : — (1)  De  Deo  Socratis ,  a  prolix  exposi¬ 
tion  of  the  Platonic  doctrine  on  the  subject  of  God  and  the 
daemons ;  (2)  De  Platone  et  eius  dogmate,  a  treatise  on  the  natural 

1  Rabaste,  Quid  cotnicis  debuerit  Lucianus  (1867). 

2  Saintsbury,  i  149. 

3  Krumbacher,  Gesch.  d.  Byz.  Lit.  §§  194,  198,  21 1,  p.  756s,  and  Hase, 
Notices  et  Extraits,  ix  2,  129. 

4  Forster,  Lucian  in  der  Renaissance  (1886). 

6  Cp.  Saintsbury,  i  146—152;  also  Egger,  464 — 9;  Christ,  §§533 — 542s; 
and  esp.  M.  Croiset,  v  583 — 616,  and  his  Essai  (1882). 

6  Cp.  iii  55  with  Lucian’s  Symposium. 


XVIII.] 


RHETORICIANS. 


311 


Alexander 


and  moral  philosophy  of  Plato,  followed  by  a  spurious  book  on 
the  logic  of  Aristotle.  He  also  wrote  De  Mundo ,  a  free  trans¬ 
lation  of  the  7 repl  koc/xov,  bearing  the  name  of  Aristotle,  and 
possibly  written  by  Nicolaus  of  Damascus1. 

Greek  rhetoric  includes  the  criticism  of  literature  and  the 
study  of  models  of  style,  and  in  these  respects  has 
points  of  contact  with  the  general  history  of  rhetoricians 
Scholarship.  All  that  was  essential  in  the  pre¬ 
vious  teaching  of  rhetoric  was  summed  up  in  the  time  of  Hadrian 
by  Alexander2,  son  of  Numenius.  His  treatise  on  Figures3  was 
the  authority  mainly  followed  by  later  writers,  such 
as  Tiberius4  on  the  figures  of  Demosthenes;  Phoeb- 
ammon5  on  ‘rhetorical  figures’  (which  he  classifies  and  reduces 
in  number) ;  and  Herodian6,  who  introduces  examples  from  the 
poets.  The  age  of  Hadrian  may  perhaps  also  claim  Aelius  Theon 
of  Alexandria,  who  wrote  commentaries  on  Xeno¬ 
phon,  Isocrates  and  Demosthenes,  and  whose 
Progym nasm a ta  or  ‘  preliminary  exercises  ’  are  still  extant7. 
Theon’s  work  deals  with  the  art  of  writing  under  twelve  divisions: 
— maxims,  fables,  narration,  confirmation  and  refutation,  common¬ 
places,  description,  encomium,  comparison,  prosopopoeia  (or 
character-drawing),  thesis  (or  abstract  question),  and  proposal 
of  a  law ;  and  it  includes  many  illustrations  from  ancient  litera¬ 
ture.  It  was  superseded  by  a  similar  work  composed  towards 
the  end  of  the  fourth  century  by  Aphthonius,  the  pupil  of 
Libanius ;  but,  in  the  mean  time,  it  continued  to  hold  its  own 
beside  the  work  of  Hermogenes.  Hermogenes  of  Tarsus,  who 
lived  under  M.  Aurelius  and  was  already  dis¬ 
tinguished  at  the  age  of  fifteen,  failed  to  fulfil  the 
high  promise  of  his  early  years.  His  Progymnasmata 8  are  less 


Aelius  Theon 


Hermogenes 


1  All  these  Opuscula  de  Philosophia  have  been  edited  by  Goldbacher  (1876). 

2  Fragments  in  Spengel,  Rhet.  Gr.  iii  1 — 6. 

3  Sp.  iii  9 — 40.  4  Sp.  iii  59 — 82. 

.  5  Sp.  'iii  43—56. 

6  Sp.  iii  60 — 104. 

7  Sp.  ii  59.  Cp.  Saintsbury,  i  93  f,  who  rightly  inclines  to  place  him  before 
Aphthonius.  The  name  of  Aelius  given  him  by  Suidas  suggests  the  age  of 

Hadrian. 

8  Sp.  ii  3 — r 8 ;  cp.  Saintsbury,  i  90 — 2. 


i 


312 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Demetrius 


interesting  than  those  of  Theon;  his  works  on  legal  issues1,  on 
rhetorical  invention  (with  examples  from  the  Attic  orators)2,  and 
on  eloquence3,  are  more  remote  from  the  history  of  Scholar¬ 
ship  than  his  treatise  defining  the  different  varieties  of  style 
and  suggesting  methods  for  imitating  them,  with  critical  remarks 
on  some  of  the  best  prose  writers4.  The  treatise  of  Demetrius 
on  Verbal  Expression 5,  wrongly  attributed  to 
Demetrius  of  Phaleron,  certainly  belongs  to  the 
Roman  age6,  and  probably  to  the  time  of  the  Antonines7.  The 
author  frequently  quotes  from  the  Rhetoric  of  Aristotle,  and  has 
many  interesting  remarks  on  oratorical  style  and  rhythm.  Thus 
he  happily  compares  the  ‘disjointed’  style  to  a  number  of  stones 
lying  near  one  another,  loose,  scattered  and  uncombined,  and  the 
‘  periodic  ’  style  to  the  same  stones  when  bound  compactly  in 
the  self-supporting  cohesion  of  a  vaulted  dome  (§  13).  He  con¬ 
trasts  the  clauses  (kw\o)  of  Prose  with  the  metres  of  Verse,  illus¬ 
trates  these  clauses  from  Hecataeus  and  from  the  Anabasis  of 
Xenophon,  and  expresses  a  general  preference  for  short  clauses. 
He  also  discusses  periods,  and  parallel  clauses  (including  homoeo- 
teleuta).  His  main  subject  is  well  described  by  Mr  Saintsbury 
(i  104)  as  the  ‘Art  of  Prose  Composition’. 

In  this  century  rhetoric,  as  the  art  of  literary  expression,  was 
in  close  alliance  with  grammar  and  lexicography. 

Grammarians  .  <=>  sr  j 

To  the  age  of  Hadrian  we  may  assign  the  eminent 
grammarian  Apollonius  Dyscolus,  who  lived  and  died  in  poverty 
in  what  was  once  the  royal  quarter  of  Alexandria.  He  appears  to 
have  spent  a  short  time  in  Rome,  under  Antoninus 
Dysc'o/us  mS  Pius.  His  name  of  Dyscolus  (‘  crabbed  ’)  is  said  to 
have  been  due  to  a  sourness  of  temper,  caused  by 
extreme  poverty8;  but  it  is  far  more  probable  that  it  was  suggested 


1  irepl  araaeuv,  Sp.  ii  133 — 174. 

2  irepl  euptaews,  Sp.  ii  177 — 262. 

3  irepl  fieaddov  SeLvSrijTOS,  Sp.  ii  426 — 56. 

4  irepl  idea) v  ii  265 — 425,  esp.  410 — 25.  Cp.  Croiset,  v  629 — 634. 

5  irepl  epp.r)vela<>,  Sp.  iii  259 — 328;  ed.  Radermacher,  and  Rhys  Roberts, 
1902. 

6  §  108  refers  to  the  patrician  laticlave.  7  Croiset,  v  87  n. 

8  Anonymous  life  (ap.  Flach,  Hesychius  Miles.,  p.  243).  Cp.  Grafenhan, 
iii  70  f. 


XVIII.] 


APOLLONIUS  DYSCOLUS. 


313 


by  the  difficulty  of  his  style.  Apollonius  and  his  son,  Herodian, 
are  the  most  important  grammarians  of  the  imperial  age.  He  was 
the  founder  of  scientific  grammar,  and  the  creator  of  Greek  Syntax. 
Of  his  numerous  writings  a  large  portion  was  lost  at  an  early  date. 
The  fact  that  Priscian  founded  his  great  grammatical  work  on 
that  of  Apollonius,  has  suggested  the  view  that  the  writings  of 
Apollonius  (most  of  which  are  now  known  by  their  titles  alone) 
formed  part  of  a  complete  ‘art  of  grammar’,  treated  under  thirteen 
heads.  This  view  (which  is  that  of  Dronke1  and  Uhlig)  is  not,  how¬ 
ever,  generally  accepted.  The  existence  of  a  complete  art  of  grammar 
cannot  be  inferred  either  from  Priscian,  or  from  the  scholium  on 
Dionysius  Thrax2,  which  is  quoted  for  this  purpose.  Apollonius 
must  therefore  be  regarded  as  the  author,  not  of  a  systematic 
treatise,  but  of  a  series  of  special  studies  on  important  points3. 
The  subjects  of  his  principal  works  were,  the  parts  of  speech  in 
general,  also  nouns  and  verbs  in  particular,  and  syntax.  The 
parts  of  speech,  in  his  view,  were  eight  in  number,  arranged  in 
the  following  order : — noun,  verb,  participle,  article,  pronoun, 
preposition,  adverb  and  conjunction.  His  works  on  nouns  and 
verbs  were  extensively  quoted,  not  only  by  Priscian,  but  also  by 
Georgius  Choeroboscus  ( c .  600)  and  the  scholiasts  on  Dionysius 
Thrax.  But  only  four  of  his  writings  have  survived — those  on 
the  pronoun,  adverbs4,  conjunctions  and  syntax5.  This  last  is  in 
four  books,  the  first  of  which  determines  the  number  and  order  of 
the  parts  of  speech  (assigning  precedence  to  the  noun  and  verb), 
and  next  discusses  the  syntax  of  the  article ;  the  second  deals 
with  the  syntax  of  the  pronoun ;  the  third  begins  with  the 
rules  of  ‘  concord  ’  ( Ko.ra\\y]k6rr]^ )  and  their  exceptions,  followed 
by  the  general  syntax  of  the  verb ;  the  fourth  includes  the  syntax 
of  prepositions,  adverbs  and  conjunctions,  but  only  a  small  portion 
of  this  is  still  extant6. 

1  Rhein .  A/us.  xi  549  f.  2  Preller,  Aufsdtze,  p.  89. 

3  Cp.  Matthias,  in  Fleckeis.  Jahrb.,  Suppl.  xv,  quoted  in  Jeep’s  Redetheile, 

p.  94. 

4  First  printed  in  Bekker’s  Anecd.  Gr.  ii  630 — 646.  5  ib.  ii  479 — 525. 

6  ed.  R.  Schneider  and  Uhlig  (1878!).  Cp.  L.  Lange,  Das  System  der 

Syntax  des  Apollonios  Dyskolos  (1852),  and  Egger,  Ap.  Dyscole  (1854);  also 
Steinthal,  ii  220 — 347;  Christ,  §  564s;  Cohn  in  Pauly-  IVissozua,  II  i  136 — 9; 
and  Croiset,  v  635  f. 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


314 

While  Dionysius  Thrax  was,  as  we  have  seen,  the  first  to  make 
a  special  study  of  grammar  (p.  137),  it  was  Apollonius  who  placed 
that  study  on  a  scientific  basis.  He  analysed  the  true  nature  of 
language  and  of  its  component  parts ;  set  aside  certain  fantastic 
theories  current  in  his  day,  and  introduced  scientific  explanations 
in  their  place.  Thus  he  refutes  those  who  supposed  that  ‘the 
article  served  to  distinguish  the  genders’,  and  insists  that  each 
part  of  speech  has  its  origin  in  a  conception  characteristic  of 
itself1.  The  characteristic  of  the  article  is  ‘the  retrospective 
reference  to  a  person  already  mentioned  ’ ;  such  a  retrospect 
takes  place,  when  we  speak  either  of  a  known  person,  or  of  a 
definitely  recognised  class2.  He  was  the  only  ancient  grammarian 
who  wrote  a  complete  and  independent  work  on  Syntax,  and  his 
opinions  continued  to  be  recognised  as  authoritative  throughout 
the  Middle  Ages,  and  down  to  the  time  of  Theodorus  Gaza  and 
Constantinus  Lascaris  inclusive.  His  definitions  of  the  parts  of 
speech  show  a  marked  advance  on  those  of  his  predecessors,  and 
are  adopted  by  Priscian  and  by  subsequent  grammarians 3.  Priscian 
(xi  1)  calls  him  ‘maximus  auctor  artis  grammaticae ’,  and  refers  to 
him  and  his  son  as  ‘  maximis  auctoribus  ’  (vi  i)4.  The  vast  extent 
of  their  works  is  implied  in  Priscian’s  mention  of  the  ‘spacious 
volumes  ’  of  Apollonius,  and  the  pelagus  of  the  writings  of 
Herodian  ( Prooem .  §  4). 

Aelius  Herodianus,  the  son  of  Apollonius  Dyscolus,  lived  at 
Rome  under  M.  Aurelius.  His  principal  work, 
entitled  KaOoXiKr)  irpoo-wSta,  was  in  21  books,  the 
first  19  treating  of  accentuation  in  general,  book  20  on  quantities 
(xpoi'oi)  and  breathings  (7rj/€vp.aTa),  and  book  21  on  enclitics, 
diastole  and  synaloephe.  It  was  mainly  founded  on  Aristarchus 
and  Tryphon,  and  the  nature  of  its  subject  left  little  (if  any)  room 
for  originality.  It  is  now  represented  only  by  excerpts  preserved 
by  Theodosius  and  ‘Arcadius’.  Herodian  also  wrote  on  ortho¬ 
graphy  ;  on  barbarisms  and  monosyllabic  words ;  on  nouns  and 
verbs ;  on  inflexions,  declensions  and  conjugations.  Our  know¬ 
ledge  of  these  works  depends  entirely  on  extracts  in  later 

1  Syntax ,  i  p.  23  Bekker,  Zkcuttov  Se  avr&v  idias  tvvola s  dvdyera t. 

2  ib.  p.  26  (Croiset,  l.c.). 

3  Cp.  Grafenhan,  iii  109 — 132.  4  Cp.  xiv  1,  xvii  1. 


XVIII.] 


HERODIAN.  NICANOR. 


315 


grammarians,  e.g.  in  the  Homeric  scholia ,  and  in  Stephanus  of 
Byzantium.  His  only  extant  work  is  a  treatise  ‘  on  peculiar 
diction’  (7r€pi  fiovrjpovs  consisting  of  a  series  of  articles 

on  exceptional  or  anomalous  words.  The  close  of  the  preface 
skilfully  leads  up  to  the  first  article  in  the  list,  that  on  Zeus1. 
We  have  also  an  abstract  of  his  teaching  on  syllables  ‘  common  ’ 
in  quantity  {irepl  Sixpovwv),  and  numerous  excerpts  from  his  work 
on  the  accentuation  of  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey.  These  excerpts 
are  mainly  preserved  in  the  Homeric  scholia 2.  Herodian  generally 
agrees  with  Aristarchus,  while  he  often  discusses  the  views  of 
Tryphon  and  others  less  known  to  fame3.  By  grammarians  of 
later  ages  he  is  generally  called  6  re^vt/co?  \ 

Another  of  the  sources  of  the  above  scholia  was  the  work  of 
Nicanor  ( 7repl  <rTt.yfif)<s),  written  by  an  Alexandrian 
grammarian  rather  earlier  than  Herodian,  probably 
in  the  reign  of  Hadrian.  Nicanor  distinguished  eight  varieties  of 
punctuation5,  viz.  three  forms  of  the  full  stop3;  two  of  the  colon7; 
and  three  of  the  comma8.  His  interest  in  punctuation  led  to  his 
being  known  as  ‘the  punctuator’  (6  (rrty/xarta?) 9. 

In  the  second  century  lexicography  received  a  new  impulse 
from  the  prevailing  fancy  for  imitating  the  great 
Attic  models  of  the  past.  The  study  of  those  grapheCrs" 
models  had  been  begun  in  the  days  of  Dionysius 
of  Halicarnassus,  while  their  imitation  was  the  characteristic  of 
the  new  Sophists,  who  came  into  existence  towards  the  close  of 
the  first  century,  and  flourished  during  the  age  of  the  Antonines 


Nicanor 


10 


1  irp&Tos  qpuv  debs  Trapeario *  SiKaiov  yap  rqu  apxvv  <*7r’  o-vtov  Troi7)<ra<rdai., 
w s  Kal  6  2o\ei>s  (Aratus)  ap\bpevos  tyq  eic  Aids  apxwpecrda. 

2  Lehrs,  Herodiani  scripta  tria  (1848). 

3  Lehrs,  De  Aristarchi  Siudiis  Homericis ,  p.  303 ;  cp.  Ludwich,  Aristarchs 
Horn.  Textkr.  i  75 — 80. 

4  Cp.  in  general  Lentz,  Herodiani  technici  reliquiae  (1867) ;  Grafenhan,  iii 
72,  99;  Christ,  §  565s;  Croiset,  v  637. 

5  Bachmann,  Anecd.  ii  316. 

6  vi repreXeia,  reXeia,  viroreXeia.  7  Aval  irptorq,  bevrtpa. 

8  avwtrbKpiTos ,  evvirbKpiTos ,  and  virocrTLypr}.  This  last  is  a  ‘stop  put  after  a 
protasis,’  an  apodotic  comma. 

9  Friedlander,  Nicanoris .. .reliquiae  (1850);  cp.  Grafenhan,  iii  67,  94;  Christ, 
§  563s ;  Croiset,  v  637  f. 

10  Cp.  Bernhardy,  Gr.  Litt.  i  630 — 642 4. 


3i  6 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Aelius 

Dionysius 


This  new  type  of  imitative  literature  stimulated  the  production  of 
lexicographical  works  prepared  by  compilers  claiming  the  name  of 
‘Atheists’.  Their  aim  was  partly  to  collect  words  and  phrases 
sanctioned  by  Attic  usage,  partly  to  explain  unfamiliar  terms 
found  in  Attic  authors.  Lists  of  such  words  had  already  been 
drawn  up,  in  the  Alexandrian  age,  by  Aristophanes  and  Crates ; 
and,  early  in  the  imperial  age,  by  Demetrius  Ixion  and  Caecilius 
of  Calacte ;  also,  in  the  first  century  a.d.,  by  minor  grammarians 
such  as  Dorotheus  and  Epitherses,  Nicander  and  Irenaeus1.  But 
it  was  in  the  time  of  Hadrian,  at  the  beginning  of  a  new  age  of 
Greek  Scholarship2,  that  lexicography  made  its  first  important 
advance. 

In  that  age  the  chief  representative  of  lexicography  is  the 
‘  Atticist  ’,  Aelius  Dionysius,  described  by  Suidas  as 
a  descendant  of  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus.  He 
compiled  a  lexicon  of  Attic  words  in  five  books 
with  a  supplement  in  five  more,  both  parts  including  many 
examples  of  each  word.  Photius  {cod.  152)  describes  it  as 
equally  useful  to  imitators  of  Attic  style  and  students  of  Attic 
writers.  His  own  copy  included  a  similar  lexicon,  of  equal  bulk, 
but  containing  fewer  examples,  compiled  by  another 
the*Att?cist’  ‘Atticist’,  Pausanias,  who  lived  under  Antoninus 
Pius  and  possibly  also  under  M.  Aurelius.  Photius 
{cod.  153)  suggests  the  desirability  of  recasting  and  combining  the 
lexicons  of  both  of  these  ‘  Atticists  ’  in  a  single  work  with  all  the 
items  in  a  single  alphabetical  order3.  For  most  of  our  knowledge 
of  both,  we  are  indebted  to  Eustathius.  The  sources  of  their 
learning  are  Aristophanes  of  Byzantium  and  Didymus,  Pamphilus 
and  Diogenianus,  Tryphon  and  Herodian4.  In  the 
age  of  Hadrian,  Julius  Vestinus  of  Alexandria  com¬ 
piled  collections  of  words  from  Thucydides,  and  from  Isaeus, 
Isocrates,  Demosthenes  and  other  orators5;  while  his  fellow- 


Vestinus 


1  Croiset,  v  639. 

2  Wilamowitz,  Eur.  Her.  i  173. 

3  Cod.  152 — 3.  Cp.  Rindfleisch,  De  Pansaniae  et  A  elii  Dionysii  lex.  rhet. 
(1866). 

4  E.  Schwabe,  A  elii  Dionysii  et  Pausaniae  Frag.  (1890),  combined  in 
alphabetical  order. 

5  Suidas,  Ovrja twos. 


XVIII.] 


THE  ATTICISTS. 


317 


townsman,  Valerius  Pollio,  made  a  selection  of  Attic  phrases, 
mainly  from  the  poets.  Pollio’s  son,  Diodorus,  confined  himself 
to  explaining  difficult  terms  in  the  Attic  orators1. 

Of  the  ‘  Atticists 5  the  most  interesting  to  ourselves  are 
Phrynichus  and  Moeris,  some  of  whose  works  are 

.  .  Phrynichus 

still  extant.  Phrynichus  ( fl .  180)  appears  to  have 
taught  Rhetoric  in  Bithynia  under  M.  Aurelius  and  Comrnodus. 
He  was  a  passionate  purist,  and,  in  spite  of  feeble  health, 
composed  a  vast  lexicon  of  Attic  terms  in  37  books,  under  the 
title  of  cro(f)iaTLKr}  7rpo7rapaaKev7j,  1  the  rhetorical  magazine  \  All 
that  we  know  of  this  great  work  is  the  selection  published  in 
Bekker’s  Anecdota 2,  and  the  summary  in  Photius  {cod.  158),  who 
describes  the  work  as  at  least  five  times  too  long,  and  the  author 
as  failing  to  illustrate  by  example  that  beauty  of  style  which  he 
commends  by  precept.  It  was  partly  founded  on  the  work  of 
Aelius  Dionysius.  As  authorities  Phrynichus  recognised,  in  prose, 
Plato  and  the  ten  Attic  orators,  with  Thucydides,  Xenophon, 
Aeschines  Socraticus,  Critias  and  Antisthenes  (with  a  special 
preference  for  Plato,  Demosthenes  and  Aeschines  Socraticus) ; 
and,  in  verse,  Aeschylus,  Sophocles,  Euripides  and  Aristophanes3. 
He  composed  (probably  in  his  youth)  a  far  shorter  work  which 
has  come  down  to  us,  known  to  Sui'das  as  the  ’ArriKiornys,  with  an 
alternative  title  eK.\oyr\  pY)p.dT(ov  kcu  dvop-draiv  ’Attikcoi/.  It  consists 
of  a  long  list  of  rules  and  prohibitions,  telling  the  student  what 
expressions  to  avoid,  and  what  to  use  instead4.  Throughout  the 

1  Phot.  149  k  Cp.,  in  general,  Christ,  §  57 13 ;  Croiset,  v  640! 

2  i  pp.  1 — 74.  3  Photius,  cod.  158,  p.  ioi  b. 

4  You  must  say  not  eKovrrju,  but  ideXovTr/v ;  not  omdev,  but  ftirurdev;  not 
iKeoia,  but  UereLa;  not  viro8eiyp.a,  but  irapd8eiyp.a.;  not  wvd.p.r]v,  but  wvr]p.r)v ; 
not  /iexpis  and  &XPLS’  but  pexp<-  and  axPL>  not  &7 rival,  but  airdvai;  not  dadrw, 
but  eio-iTU);  not  evxo.p<-<yrelv  (which  has  survived  in  modern  Greek),  but  xdp<-v 
ddivcu.  &prL  must  not  be  constructed  with  the  Future  ;  Ttpaxos  must  be  used 
only  of  fish.  You  must  not  say  air  or  da  00 pat,  but  aairafropLcu;  not  <njfj.dvai ,  but 
arjpLrjvai.;  not  (pXeypidvai ,  but  (pXeyp^rivaL ;  not  irepdoaevcre,  but  ineplaoevae  ;  not 
Trioup-cu,  but  Trlopcu;  not  ^Xei7rrcu,  but  aXrjXenrTcu;  not  upoKe,  but  6p.wp.0Ke;  not 
a.ireXe6aop.aL ,  but  &Treip.i ;  not  ireivau  and  di\f/dv,  but  7 reLvrju  and  ;  not  kclko- 

doupoveiv,  but  KaKodaipovdv.  ‘To  answer’  is  not  aTTOKpLdijyaL,  but  airoKpivoiodou ; 
iirldoiios  must  not  be  used  in  the  sense  of  iirLcrrjpos ;  you  must  not  use  iwvri(xdp.r]v, 
but  eirpLa.p.’qv ;  not  tfprjv,  but  fy,  and  so  on,  through  more  than  400  items.  Ed. 
Lobeck  (1820);  Rutherford  (1881). 


318 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Orus 


work  the  author  keeps  his  attention  fixed  on  the  general  usage  of 
the  best  Attic  writers,  without  regard  to  exceptional  or  mistaken 
divergencies  from  the  strict  Attic  rule1.  Those  whom  Phrynichus 
specially  singles  out  for  animadversion,  among  recent  writers  who 
had  departed  from  the  Attic  standard,  are  two  of  the  age  of 
Hadrian  : — Lollianus,  who  was  himself  a  Greek  and  taught  at 
Athens ;  and  Favorinus,  a  native  of  Gaul,  who  was  not  unknown 
in  Rome  (suflra,  p.  301). 

The  views  of  Phrynichus  on  points  of  Attic  usage  were 
controverted  by  Orus,  a  grammarian  of  uncertain 
date,  who  is  sometimes  placed  shortly  after  Phry¬ 
nichus2.  Orus  is  possibly  one  of  the  authorities  followed  in  the 
short  anonymous  lexicon  called  the  Anti-Atticisi  (’AvriarrtKtcrTrfs)3 4. 
The  latter  gives  ancient  authorities  for  words  condemned  by 
Phrynichus  and  others.  Thus  Phrynichus  (100)  condemns  the 
use  of  (XK/X17V  for  ert,  though  he  knew  that  it  is  once  found  in 
Xenophon.  The  A?iti-Atticist  records  this  use,  and  justifies  it  by 
adding  a  reference  to  Hypereides.  Of  the  life  of 
Aelius  Moeris  we  know  nothing ;  but  we  possess 
his  collection  of  Attic  terms  (A.e£e is  ’Attikcu),  which,  like  one  of  the 
works  of  Phrynichus,  is  sometimes  called  the  ’ArTi/(t(rT7jV. 

The  date  of  Valerius  Harpocration,  the  author  of  an  important 
lexicon  to  the  Attic  orators  (Ae£€is  t<3v  Sckci  p-^ropwv), 

Harpocration  .  .  c 

is  uncertain.  He  is  described  by  Suidas  as  a 
rhetorician  of  Alexandria.  According  to  various  modern  views, 
he  was  a  contemporary  of  either  Tiberius5,  or  Hadrian6,  or 
Libanius7.  It  is  perhaps  best  to  place  him  in  the  second 


Moeris 


1  Cp.  Dedication  to  Cornelianus,  quoted  on  p.  261. 

2  E.  Hiller,  Die  Zeit  des  Gram.  Oros ,  Jahrb.  f.  cl.  Phil.,  1869,  p.  438  f, 
agrees  with  Ritschl,  Opusc.  i  582,  in  placing  him  shortly  after  Phrynichus. 
But  Reitzenstein,  Etymologika ,  pp.  287  f  and  348,  makes  him  a  contemporary 
of  Orion  (c.  425  A.D.). 

3  Bekker,  Anecd.  i  75 — 116. 

4  ed.  Bekker,  1833;  cp.  Christ,  §  57 13 ;  Croiset,  v  641. 

5  E.  Meier,  de  aetate  Harp,  in  Opusc.  Acad.  ii. 

6  Bernhardy,  Quaestionum  de  Harp,  aetate  specimen. 

7  Valesius,  ed.  1682;  Libanius  ( Ep .  371)  reproaches  Themistius  for  attract¬ 
ing  ‘the  Egyptian  Harpocration’  to  the  inclement  climate  of  Constantinople 
P-  353)* 


XVIII.] 


HARPOCRATION. 


319 


century1,  and  to  identify  him  with  the  Harpocration  mentioned 
by  Julius  Capitolinus2  among  the  grammatici  Graeci  charged  with 
the  education  of  L.  Yerus  ;  he  would  thus  belong  to  the  age  of 
the  Antonines.  He  cites  no  grammarian  or  lexicographer  later 
than  the  time  of  Augustus,  and  it  is  this  fact  that  has  led  to  his 
being  placed  as  early  as  Tiberius ;  but  it  is  also  consistent  with  a 
later  date,  as  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  first  two  centuries  saw 
the  publication  of  any  work  on  the  Attic  orators  which  it  was 
possible  for  him  to  cite.  His  lexicon  has  come  down  to  us  in 
two  forms,  the  complete  work  and  an  abridgement ;  but  the  mss 
of  the  former  are  far  inferior  to  those  of  the  latter.  One  of  the 
mss  of  the  complete  work  (P)  is  in  the  Library  of  Trinity  College, 
Cambridge  :  another  (Q)  in  that  of  the  University  (Dd  4,  63).  In 
the  margin  of  the  second  is  a  series  of  articles  (including  a  passage 
from  Philochorus  on  the  subject  of  ostracism),  first  published  by 
Dobree  (1822)  under  the  name  of  Lexicon  rhetoricum  Canta- 
brigiense.  The  work  of  Harpocration  himself  is  of  special  value 
in  connexion  with  the  language  of  the  Attic  orators  and  the 
institutions  of  Athens.  Besides  quotations  from  the  tragic  and 
comic  poets,  it  preserves  for  us  a  number  of  passages  from  the 
Atthidographers  Hellanicus,  Androtion,  Phanodemus,  Philochorus, 
and  Istrus,  from  the  Constitutions  of  Aristotle,  from  the  Laws  of 
Theophrastus,  from  historians  such  as  Hecataeus,  Ephorus  and 
Theopompus,  Anaximenes  and  Marsyas,  also  from  Craterus,  the 
collector  of  Attic  decrees,  from  travellers  such  as  Polemon  and 
Diodorus  {On  Denies ),  and  from  scholars  such  as  Callimachus, 
Eratosthenes  and  Didymus  of  Alexandria,  Dionysius  of  Hali¬ 
carnassus  and  his  namesake,  the  son  of  Tryphon.  These  two 
last  are  apparently  his  latest  authorities.  In  five  passages  he 
mentions  certain  mss  of  Demosthenes  known  as  ’Am/aava, 
which  are  also  mentioned  in  two  of  our  Demosthenic  mss  (the 
Munich  and  Venice  mss,  B  and  F  respectively)  at  the  end  of  the 
Speech  on  Philip's  Letter 3,  and  are  probably  connected  with  the 


1  So  Dindorf. 

2  Jul.  Capitol.,  Verus,  c.  2. 

3  duopdojTcu  €K  8 vo  ’  AttlkiclvCov.  Cp.  Galen,  fragm.  comm .  in  Tim.  Plat. 
p.  12  Daremberg,  Kara  ttjv  twv  'Attik&v  avTiypacpuv  ftcdocrti',  and  Bernhardy 
Gr.  Litt.  i  6 34A 


320 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


person  of  that  name  noticed  by  Lucian  ( adv .  Indoctum ,  2,  24), 
who  is  sometimes  identified  with  Atticus,  the  friend  of  Cicero1. 
Harpocration  seldom  goes  so  far  astray  as  in  the  article  on  the 
phrase  6  KarmOev  vo/jlos  (Dem.  23  §  28),  where  he  actually  records 
three  erudite  but  erroneous  explanations  proposed  by  Didymus, 
instead  of  stating  that  it  simply  means  ‘  the  law  next  below  \  ‘  the 
following  law  ’2. 

Another  lexicographer,  Julius  Pollux  (QoAvSev/o/s)  of  Naucratis 
(fl.  180  a.d.),  is  the  author  of  an  Onomastieott3  of 
Attic  words  and  phrases  in  ten  Books,  dedicated  to 
his  imperial  pupil,  Commodus,  who  appointed  him  to  a  professor¬ 
ship  at  Athens,  which  he  held  until  his  death  at  the  age  of  58. 
The  arrangement  is  according  to  subjects.  Among  the  most 
valuable  portions  are  Book  iv,  on  music,  dancing  and  the  Greek 
theatre,  probably  partially  borrowed  from  Juba  (supra,  p.  287) 4; 
Book  viii,  on  the  Athenian  tribunals  and  officers  of  State, 
founded  partly  on  Aristotle’s  Constitution  of  Athens5;  and  Book 
ix  (§  51  f),  on  Coins.  His  primary  authorities  are  the  lexicons 
of  Didymus,  Tryphon  and  Pamphilus ;  in  Book  11  he  partly  relies 
on  a  medical  writer  named  Rufus ;  and,  from  Book  ix  onwards 
(as  he  himself  tells  us),  he  has  made  use  of  the  Ono?nasticon  of 
Gorgias  the  younger.  His  biographer,  Philostratus,  informs  us 
that,  while  in  matters  of  criticism  he  was  fairly  competent,  his 
declamations  were  marked  by  more  spirit  than  skill6;  and,  as 
already  observed  (p.  308),  the  scholiast  on  the  Lexiphanes  and 
Rhetorum  Praeceptor  of  Lucian  informs  us  that  both  of  those 
works,  with  their  ridicule  of  those  who  affected  an  ultra- Attic 
phraseology,  were  intended  as  a  satire  on  Pollux.  But,  on 
the  whole,  there  seems  to  be  good  reason  for  agreeing  with 


1  Cp.  Dziatzko  in  Pauly-Wissowa,  s.v.  ’ ATTiKiava. 

2  6  /zero,  tovtov  vbfxos  (Bekker’s  Anecd.  269).  Cp.  Cobet,  De  auctoritate  et 
usu  Grammaticorum  veterutn  (1853);  Blass  in  I.  Muller’s  Handbuch,  iB  4, 
p.  I552- — On  Harpocration,  cp.  Christ,  §  572s;  Croiset,  v  646  b 

3  ed.  Dindorf  (1824);  Bekker  (1846);  Bethe  (1900-  ).  Cp.  Christ,  §  573s  * 
Croiset,  v  645  f. 

4  Rohde,  De  Pollucis  in  apparatu  scaenico  enarrando  fontibus  (1870). 

5  See  Introduction  p.  xxv,  and  Testimonia ,  in  present  writer’s  ed. 

6  Vit.  Soph,  ii  12,  ra  fxkv  /cpm/ca  IkclvQs  rjaKeiro  kt\. 


XVIII.] 


POLLUX.  HEPHAESTION. 


321 


Hephaestion 


Hemsterhuis1,  the  editor  of  both,  that  Pollux  is  not  attacked  by 
Lucian,  though  Lucian,  who  is  himself  an  Atticist,  remorselessly 
attacks  the  affected  Atticism  of  his  day. 

In  this  age  the  leading  authority  on  metre  was  Hephaestion  of 
Alexandria,  probably  identical  with  the  grammarian 
of  that  name  who,  together  with  Telephus  of  Per- 
gamon,  and  Harpocration,  was  charged  with  the  education  of 
L.  Verus2;  if  so,  he  belongs  to  the  middle  of  the  second  century. 
His  work  on  metre  (originally  in  no  less  than  48  books)  has  only 
survived  in  the  epitomised  form  of  his  own  Encheiridion.  Of  the 
three  best  mss  one  is  in  Paris  and  two  in  Cambridge,  while  the 
scholia  (including  extracts  from  an  earlier  authority,  Heliodorus, 
and  from  the  unabridged  work  of  Hephaestion)  are  preserved  in 
two  mss  in  Oxford3.  It  long  remained  the  standard  work  on  the 
subject.  We  also  possess  part  of  his  treatise  on  poetry,  the  most 
important  portion  of  which  is  the  passage  on  the  parabasis  in 
Attic  Comedy. 

Early  in  the  second  century  the  study  of  Aristophanes  was 
facilitated  by  Symmachus  ( c .  100),  whose  extant 
scholia  prove  that  he  commented  on  the  plays  in 
the  following  order  : — Plutus ,  Nubes ,  Ranae,  Equites ,  Acharnians, 
Vespae,  Pax ,  Aves,  Thesmophoriazusae ,  Ecclesiazusae  and  Lysis- 
trata .  He  apparently  produced  the  first  edition  of  select  plays 
of  Aristophanes4.  The  metres  of  that  poet  had  already  been 
studied  by  Heliodorus,  who  preceded  Hephaestion,  and  is  some¬ 
times  placed  in  the  first  half  of  the  first  century  a.d. 

Among  commentators  on  Plato,  in  the  age  of  the  Antonines, 
we  may  mention  Albinus,  who  was  one  of  the  instruc¬ 
tors  of  Galen  in  15 1,  and  wrote  a  considerable  work 
on  the  dogmas  of  Plato,  the  two  surviving  fragments 
of  which  include  a  discussion  on  the  order  of  the  dia¬ 
logues,  and  a  summary  of  Plato’s  teaching  (under  the 
slightly  altered  name  of  Alcinous)5.  A  commentary  on  Plato  was 


Symmachus 


Commenta¬ 
tors  on  Plato ; 
Albinus. 
Atticus. 
Theon. 
Numenius 


1  Lucian,  Proleg.  p.  3 if,  and  v  175  ed.  Bipont. 

2  Jul.  Capitol.,  Verus,  c.  2. 

3  ed.  Gaisford  (18552),  and  Westphal  (1866).  Cp.  Christ,  §  567s;  Croiset, 

v  649  f.  4  Wilamowitz,  Eur .  Her.  i  1 79  f ;  Romer,  Studien  (1902). 

5  Printed  in  K.  F.  Hermann’s  text  of  Plato,  vol.  vi  (Croiset,  v  691). 

S.  21 


322 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


also  written  by  one  Atticus  (f.  175),  and  extracts  from  his  exposition 
of  the  Timaeus  are  preserved  by  Proclus.  The  mathematical 
passages  in  Plato  were  expounded  in  a  Neo-pythagorean  spirit 
by  Theon  of  Smyrna,  and  part  of  this  exposition  has  survived1. 
Lastly,  the  Neo-pythagorean  Numenius,  who  wrote  on  the  di¬ 
vergencies  between  the  teaching  of  Plato  and  that  of  the  later 
Academy,  is  among  the  precursors  of  Neo-platonism. 

A  varied  training  in  the  principles  of  the  Platonists,  Peripa¬ 
tetics,  Stoics  and  Epicureans,  fell  to  the  lot  of  Galen 
(13 1 — 201),  who  was  born  at  Pergamon  in  the  reign 
of  Hadrian,  and  studied  medicine  in  Pergamon,  Smyrna  and 
Alexandria  before  settling  for  a  while  in  Rome.  On  the  death  of 
M.  Aurelius  (180),  he  returned  to  Pergamon  and  there  ended  his 
days.  Besides  being  a  prolific  writer  on  medical  and  philosophical 
subjects  (including  ethics  and  logic),  he  wrote  on  matters  connected 
with  grammar  and  literary  criticism.  Of  ten  such  works  that  he 
names  in  the  list  of  his  own  writings  (c.  17),  five  were  on  Ancient 
Comedy.  Some  of  the  rest  dealt  with  questions  of  Atticism, 
including  a  lexicon  in  48  books  comprising  words  used  by  the 
early  Attic  writers.  In  the  treatise  On  the  order  of  his  own  works 
(c.  5)  he  shows  that  he  had  no  sympathy  with  the  Atticism  of  the 
day;  he  even  ridicules  those  who  criticised  errors  of  pronunciation. 
The  aim  of  his  lexicon  was  simply  to  determine  the  exact  sense  of 
the  words  used  by  ancient  writers,  which,  as  he  found,  were  often 
misunderstood  by  his  contemporaries.  He  is  practically  repeating 
a  precept  of  Aristotle’s  Rhetoric  (iii  2,  1),  when  he  says  that  the 
greatest  merit  of  style  is  perspicuity2,  and  the  excellence  of  his 
own  style  is  due  to  his  using  ordinary  language  free  from  the 
affectations  of  Atticism  and  archaism3.  He  wrote  commentaries 
on  Plato’s  Timaeus  and  Philebus ,  on  Aristotle’s  Categories  and 
Analytics ,  and  on  Theophrastus  and  Chrysippus ;  but,  with  the 
exception  of  fragments  of  the  first,  they  have  not  survived.  His 
1 18  genuine  extant  works  include  one  on  sophistical  expressions, 
and  another  on  the  dogmas  of  Hippocrates  and  Plato. 

1  ed.  Hiller,  1878. 

2  De  Facultatibus  Nat.,  c.  I,  r\p.eh  ye  p.eyl<TTt\v  X^ews  aperrjv  <ra<p"qveiav  elvou 
veireuTiitvoi. 

3  Croiset,  v  721,  725;  cp.  Christ,  §  645s. 


XVIII.] 


GALEN.  SEXTUS  EMPIRICUS. 


323 


Towards  the  close  of  the  second  century  the  empiric  school 
of  medicine  was  represented  by  Sextus  Empiricus, 
whose  writings  are  our  principal  authority  on  the  Empiricus 
Greek  Sceptics.  The  shorter  of  his  two  extant 
works,  the  Pyrrhonean  Sketches ,  is  an  outline  of  the  views  of  the 
founder  of  the  Sceptics,  in  the  form  of  a  refutation  of  the  logical, 
physical  and  moral  doctrines  of  the  dogmatists ;  the  longer,  the 
Sceptical  Commentaries ,  consists  of  eleven  Books,  1 — v  being 
directed  against  the  dogmatists,  and  the  remaining  six  against 
teachers  of  the  sciences  (tt pos  fxa6rjiJ.aTLKov<s),  viz.  the  grammarians 
(vi),  rhetoricians  (vn),  geometricians  (vm),  arithmeticians  (ix), 
astrologers  (x),  and  musicians  (xi)1.  He  endeavours  to  demolish 
all  the  liberal  arts2  in  turn,  with  a  view  to  proving  that  nothing 
whatever  can  really  be  taught :  much  of  his  work,  though  marked 
by  considerable  acumen,  is  puerile  and  pedantic ;  but  his  poetic 
quotations  are  of  some  interest ;  and,  happily,  in  attacking  the 
arts,  he  preserves  some  important  facts  about  them.  Thus  his 
attack  on  the  grammarians  is  of  special  value  for  certain  items  of 
evidence  connected  with  the  history  of  Scholarship3.  It  may  be 
added  that  he  approves  the  division  of  Grammar  into  three  parts, 
(1)  technical,  including  the  study  of  diction;  (2)  historical,  including 
the  explanation  of  mythological  and  antiquarian  allusions;  (3)  exe¬ 
gesis,  criticism  and  emendation  (i  4).  He  is  here  probably  following 
Apollonius4. 

The  close  of  the  century  is  marked  by  a  name  of  note 
among  Christian  scholars.  Clement  of  Alexandria 
( c .  160 — c.  215),  probably  an  Athenian  by  birth,  Alexandria** 
sought  in  the  philosophic  schools  of  Greece  and 
Italy,  of  Syria  and  of  Palestine,  the  teaching  which  he  found  at 
last  at  Alexandria  ( c .  180)  in  the  lectures  of  the  Stoic  Pantaenus, 
who  had  become  a  convert  to  Christianity.  Clement  himself 
taught  at  Alexandria  ( c .  190 — 203),  first  as  the  colleague  and  next 
as  the  successor  of  Pantaenus,  counting  Origen  among  his  pupils. 


1  In  the  MSS  the  second  group  of  Books  is  wrongly  placed  first,  and  the 
whole  work  is  often  quoted  by  the  title  of  that  group,  Adv.  Mathe?naticos. 

2  iyK\jK\ia  fjLadrjfjLaTa,  p.  600,  1.  23. 

3  e.g.  p.  10  n.  4  supra. 

4  Christ,  §  5123;  Croiset,  v  701 — 3. 


21 — 2 


324 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


About  203  he  left  Alexandria  for  ever,  passing  the  rest  of  his  life 
at  various  places  in  Asia  Minor,  and  also  at  Antioch.  The  three 
principal  works,  in  which  his  teaching  is  successively  unfolded, 
are  (1)  his  Exhortation  (Aoyos  tt poTptTrrLKos  7 rpos  ’’'EAA^i/us),  a 
learned  and  systematic  attack  on  paganism,  dealing  almost  entirely 
with  Greek  mythology  and  Greek  speculation ;  (2)  his  Paedagogus , 
a  course  of  instruction  resting  on  reason  as  well  as  revelation,  and 
partly  borrowed  from  the  Greek  philosophers,  and  from  the  Stoic 
Musonius  Rufus1;  (3)  his  Miscellanies 2,  in  which  he  aims  at  giving 
precision  of  form  to  precepts  of  moral  perfection,  and  reconciling 
faith  with  reason,  Christian  truth  with  pagan  philosophy.  That 
philosophy  he  regards  as  originally  derived  from  the  Hebrew 
Scriptures  and  as  leading  up  to  Christianity  by  promoting  habits 
of  serious  thought  and  purifying  the  mind  from  unreasoning 
prejudice3.  In  the  spirit  of  an  eclectic4,  he  borrows  freely  from 
the  Greek  philosophers,  and  above  all  from  Plato,  sometimes 
expressly  acknowledging  his  obligations,  sometimes  tacitly  leaving 
them  to  be  detected  by  readers  familiar  with  the  original.  He 
regards  Greek  philosophy  as  given  by  God  for  the  training  of  the 
nations,  while  it  supplies  the  Christian  philosopher  with  a  recreation 
only,  as  compared  with  the  serious  objects  of  his  study5.  He 
has  been  well  described  as  ‘  a  born  orator  and  friend  of  the  Muses, 
delighting  in  apt  anecdotes  and  fine  sayings,  loving  everything 
in  the  shape  of  literature’6.  There  is  no  doubt  as  to  the  vast 
variety  of  his  learning,  however  imperfectly  it  may  be  assimilated. 
It  is  from  the  Pythagorean  Numenius7  that  he  borrows  his  famous 
simile  comparing  Truth  to  the  body  of  Pentheus,  torn  asunder 
by  fanatics,  each  seizing  a  limb  and  fancying  he  has  the  whole 8. 
He  describes  the  mount  of  God  as  the  true  Cithaeron,  and  applies 
to  the  mysteries  of  the  Christian  Church  phrases  borrowed  from 

1  Wendland,  Quaest.  Muson.  (1886). 

2  Kara  tt)v  aXrjdT)  <pi\o<To<f)lav  yvwcrTiKwv  vtt o/xvri panov  (TTpcj/xareis  (parti¬ 
coloured  bundles) ;  such  fanciful  titles  were  fashionable  in  this  age ;  cp.  Pref. 
to  Gellius.  Cp.  Hort  and  Mayor’s  ed.  of  Book  vii  (1902),  pp.  xi  f. 

3  Croiset,  v  746 — 53.  4  Strom,  i  p.  124. 

5  Strom,  vi  149 — 168. 

6  Bigg’s  Neoplatonism ,  p.  162. 

7  ap.  Euseb.  Praep.  Ev.  xiv  5,  7.  8  Strom,  i  13,  57. 


XVIII.] 


CLEMENT  OF  ALEXANDRIA. 


325 


the  Bacchae  of  Euripides1.  The  Gospel  is  to  him  ‘the  New  Song 
more  powerful  than  that  of  Orpheus  or  Orion’2.  His  style  is 
deeply  tinged  with  phrases  from  Homer,  whom  he  sometimes 
interprets  allegorically;  he  also  shows  a  marked  familiarity  with 
Attic  usage3.  For  modern  scholars  the  Miscellanies  are  by  far 
the  most  important  of  his  works.  The  varied  learning  there 
displayed  has  some  resemblance  to  that  accumulated  in  the  nearly 
contemporaneous  work  of  Athenaeus.  The  author  himself  com¬ 
pares  its  variety  to  that  of  a  flowery  meadow  or  a  wooded 
mountain  diversified  with  every  kind  of  growth4.  But,  in  all 
this  diversity,  there  is  the  leading  thought  that  all  the  objects 
of  knowledge  are  brought  into  unity  in  the  perfect  Christian 
philosopher.  To  Clement,  all  the  philosophy,  and  indeed  all 
the  learning,  of  the  Greeks  was  more  recent  than  that  of  other 
nations,  and  most  of  it  borrowed  from  the  Jews.  In  the  same 
spirit,  Numenius  had  already  asked :  ‘  What  is  Plato  but  Moses 
expressing  himself  in  Attic  Greek?’5.  Such  opinions  may  be 
traced  to  the  learned  Jews  of  Alexandria,  to  Philo  Judaeus 
(20  b.c. — 40  a.d.),  and  to  Aristobulus  (176  b.c.),  who  says  as 
much  in  commenting  on  the  Timaeus  of  Plato6;  and  one  of  the 
links  between  Aristobulus  and  Clement  may  perhaps  be  found 
in  Alexander  Polyhistor,  who  was  interested  in  the  Jews7.  In 
connexion  with  Greek  Scholarship  the  most  important  passages 
in  the  Miscellanies  are  1  21  (a  comparison  between  Hebrew  and 
Greek  chronology) ;  v  14  (on  the  debt  of  Greek  to  Hebrew 
literature) ;  and  vi  2  (on  plagiarisms  of  Greek  authors  from  one 
another)8.  The  second  of  these  passages  is  partly  compiled  from 
Tatian. 

Clement  of  Alexandria  is  the  earliest  of  the  Greek  Fathers 
who  were  specially  conspicuous  for  learning.  He  has  preserved 

1  11.  470 — 7;  Strom,  iv  25. 

2  Exhort,  c.  1. 

3  Bigg’s  Christian  Platonists ,  p.  45  n;  cp.  (on  his  allegories)  Hatch’s  Hibbert 
Lectures ,  p.  70. 

4  Strom,  vi  1;  vii  hi.  5  Strom,  i  22,  150. 

6  Cp.  Strom,  v  14,  97. 

7  Supra ,  p.  159.  Cp.  Cobet,  'Ep^s,  i  170. 

8  Christ,  §  68 13. 


326 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP.  XVIII. 


a  large  number  of  details  respecting  the  Orphic  and  Eleusinian 
mysteries;  and,  from  the  knowledge  of  the  mysteries  displayed 
in  his  Exhortation  (2  and  12),  it  might  even  be  inferred  that  he 
had  himself  been  initiated.  Readers  of  Lobeck’s  Aglaophamus 
may  remember  that,  in  these  matters,  he  is  there  cited  as  a  most 
important  witness  (p.  140). 


From  Codex  Parisinus  (914  a.d.)  of  Clemens  Alexandrinus 
( Protrept .  §  48),  copied  by  Baanes  for  Arethas,  abp  of  Caesarea  (p.  395  infra). 

(E.  M.  Thompson’s  Palaeography ,  p.  164.) 


<Trapa(TTr)0’d> fievov  £6vQ)v’  ixaveXdovra  eis  MyvirTov  iirayay < la 6 at  re^- 

at 

vL>ra$  Uavovs’  tov  ovv  "0 <npiv,  rbv  irpoiraTopa  crov  a brou>,  8eda Xdrjvcu  £k£- 
Xevaev  auros  ToXvreXQr  k  <  arcurKevd  >  £ei  db  abrbv  B/)tfa£is  6  dirjpuovpybs’  oi>x 
6  'A.d'qv  <  cubs’  a\\os>  8£  ns  bfubvvp.os  iicdvui  tlol  Bpvd^ibf  6s  VXt)<i> 


CHAPTER  XIX. 


GREEK  SCHOLARSHIP  IN  THE  THIRD  CENTURY. 


In  turning  from  the  second  to  the  third  century,  which 
approximately  begins  with  the  accession  of  Sep- 
timius  Severus  in  193  and  ends  with  the  abdication  centuryhird 
of  Diocletian  in  305,  we  feel  conscious  of  a  sense 
of  decline.  We  leave  the  age  of  Aristides  and  Lucian  for  that  of 
the  Philostrati,  and  Aelian  and  Athenaeus.  In  science  we  have 
no  longer  any  names  to  compare  with  those  of  Ptolemy  of 
Alexandria  and  Galen  of  Pergamon.  In  history,  however,  we 
note  a  decided  advance  in  authors  such  as  Dion  Cassius  and 
Herodian,  both  of  whom  made  Thucydides  their  model.  In 
philosophy,  the  high  level  reached  in  the  previous  century  by 
M.  Aurelius  is  fully  maintained  by  the  earliest  of  the  Neo- 
platonists.  The  decline  of  poetry,  represented  in  the  early  part 
of  the  century  by  the  Cynegetics  of  Pseudo-Oppian,  is  compensated 
by  the  rise  of  romance  in  the  writings  of  Xenophon  of  Ephesus, 
and  of  Heliodorus. 

The  Sophists  of  this  century  include  Philostratus  ‘the  Athenian’ 
(b.  c.  170;  fl.  215 — 245)  who,  before  the  year  217, 
dedicated  his  Life  of  Apollonius  of  Tyana  to  the  ‘the1  Athenian’ 
empress  Julia  Domna,  the  wife  of  Severus,  the 
mother  of  Caracalla,  ‘the  patroness  of  every  art,  and  the  friend 
of  every  man  of  genius’1.  Perhaps  the  most  memorable  passage 
is  that  in  which  Apollonius,  in  connexion  with  the  art  of  Sculpture, 
identifies  <f>avTaa-La  with  ‘  the  creative  imagination  ’ 2,  thus  giving 
the  term  a  new  meaning  unknown  to  Aristotle.  A  few  years 

1  Gibbon,  c.  6  (i  127  Bury).  Philostr.  Vit.  Apoll.  i  3;  Fit.  Soph,  ii  30; 

73- 

2  vi  19  (quoted  on  p.  72);  cp.  tt epl  iipov s,  xv  1,  and  Egger,  p.  484. 


328 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


\ 


later  (e.  230-7)  Philostratus  wrote  the  Lives  of  the  Sophists , 
Book  1  including  the  ancient  Sophists,  such  as  Gorgias ;  Book  n, 
the  modern,  among  whom  Herodes  Atticus  is  prominent.  These 
Lives  are  neither  real  biographies  nor  critical  studies,  but  are 
rhetorical  portraits  drawn  in  an  exaggerated  style.  Incidentally 
we  here  learn  that,  during  the  life  of  Herodes  Atticus,  a  purer 
Greek  was  spoken  in  Attica  than  in  Athens  itself1;  and  that, 
even  after  the  death  of  Aristides,  the  study  of  rhetoric  flourished 
at  Smyrna8.  His  Gymnasticus ,  written  after  219,  is  not  without 
interest  in  connexion  with  the  history  of  the  Olympic  games  and 
the  various  kinds  of  athletic  contests.  His  Letters  are  mainly 
inspired  by  the  New  Comedy  of  Athens  and  by  the  elegiac  poets 
of  Alexandria3.  They  also  supply  an  interesting  link  between 
Greek  and  English  poetry ;  for  it  is  here  that  we  find  the  source 
of  Ben  Jonson’s  well-known  Song  to  Celia  : — 

‘Drink  to  me  only  with  thine  eyes, 

And  I  will  pledge  with  mine; 

Or  leave  a  kiss  but  in  the  cup 
And  I’ll  not  look  for  wine.... 

I  sent  thee  late  a  rosy  wreath, 

Not  so  much  honouring  thee, 

As  giving  it  a  hope  that  there 
It  could  not  wither’d  be. 

But  thou  thereon  didst  only  breathe 
And  sent’st  it  back  to  me; 

Since  when  it  grows,  and  smells,  I  swear, 

Not  of  itself  but  thee!’4 

Bentley’s  grandson,  Cumberland,  found  fault  with  Jonson  for 
thus  borrowing  a  ‘  parcel  of  unnatural,  far-fetched  conceits  ’  from 
a  ‘  despicable  sophist’s  ’  ‘  obscure  collection  of  love-letters  ’ ;  and 
Cumberland’s  criticism  was  in  turn  denounced  by  Giffard5 * *. 

1  ii  1,  13.  2  ii  26,  1. 

3  Croiset,  v  764 — 770. 

4  Ep.  33,  epol  5b  pbuois  irpbmve  rots  6ppa<riv  ...pbvov  5’  ipfiaXova a  Vdaros  xal 

rois  xe^€<Tl  Trpoa<f>tpov<ra  7 rXtipov  (piX^paruv  rb  bxirupa  (cp.  Aristaenetus,  i  25, 

and  Agathias  in  Anth.  Pal.  v  261).  2,irbirop.<pa.  aoi  <xrb<f>avov  pbbuv,  ob  ab  ripur, 

xal  tovto  pbv  yap ,  d\\’  abroh  n  xaPl^fX€V0S  T0‘s  pbboi  s,  tv  a  pi]  papavdij.  4  6,  ult ., 

rd  Xel\pava  (tu>p  pbdwp)  avTlTrep.\]/ov  irvlovra  pbSuv  pbvov  aXXa  xal  <rou. 

8  Ben  Jonson,  viii  (1875)  259  note.  Cp.  Saintsbury,  i  119. 


XIX.] 


PHILOSTRATUS.  AELIAN. 


329 


Philostratus,  ‘the  Athenian’,  is  surpassed  in  poetic  imagination, 
and  in  a  certain  affectation  of  literary  simplicity,  by  philo 
his  nephew,  ‘Philostratus  of  Lemnos’  (born  c .  190).  stratus  n, 
The  Heroicus  of  the  latter  comprises  a  series  of 
portraits  of  the  heroes  of  the  Trojan  war,  purporting  to  be  derived 
from  the  manifestations  vouchsafed  by  the  spirit  of  Palamedes  to 
a  vine-dresser  of  scholarly  tastes  on  the  shore  of  the  Hellespont. 
Homer’s  description  of  those  heroes  is  here  corrected,  and  made 
more  ethical  and  more  dramatic.  The  work  has  some  little 
interest  in  a  history  of  Scholarship,  in  so  far  as  it  mentions  certain 
Greek  tragedies  that  are  no  longer  extant,  viz.  the  Oeneus  (i  5) 
and  the  Palamedes  (xii  2)  of  Euripides,  while  it  also  attests  a 
continued  interest  in  the  study  of  Homer.  In  his  Eikones  he 
professes  to  give  a  description  of  sixty-four  pictures  in  a  gallery 
at  Naples.  The  question  whether  actual  works  of  art  are  here 
described  has  been  much  discussed,  the  opinion  that  the  descrip¬ 
tions  are  derived  from  passages  in  the  ancient  poets  being  main¬ 
tained  by  K.  Friederichs  (i860),  and  opposed  by  Brunn  (1861, 
1871),  while  an  intermediate  view  is  suggested  by  F.  Matz 
(1867). 

One  of  the  imitators  of  the  Eikones  of  Philostratus  II  was 
his  grandson,  Philostratus  III.  Seventeen  of  his 
descriptions  are  still  extant.  They  are  preceded  status  "111 
by  a  brief  discourse  on  the  relations  between 
painting  and  poetry.  The  Eikones  are  also  imitated  by  Calli- 
stratus  in  his  fourteen  descriptions  of  statues,  in¬ 
cluding  three  by  Praxiteles  and  one  by  Lysippus1. 

Among  writers  of  miscellanies  we  may  mention  Aelian 
(c.  170 — 230),  who  was  a  priest  at  his  native 
place,  Praeneste.  A  Roman  in  spirit,  he  spoke 
Greek  ‘like  an  Athenian’,  his  preceptor  being  Pausanias,  the 
‘Atticist’2.  He  is  the  author  of  seventeen  books  On  Animals, 
mainly  borrowed  from  Alexander  of  Myndos  (first  century  a.d.), 
and  of  fourteen  books  of  Historical  Miscellanies  (77-01*1X77  lo-ropLa). 
In  both  of  these  works  he  exhibits  wide  and  varied  learning,  and 


Callistratus 


Aelian 


1  Christ,  §§  524-6* ;  Croiset,  v  761 — 773.  Schmid,  Atticismus,  iv  7, 
however,  assigns  the  above  works  of  Philostratus  II  to  Philostratus  I. 

2  Philostr.  Vit.  Soph,  ii  31. 


330 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Athenaeus 


a  certain  industry  in  collecting  facts  tending  towards  moral  and 
religious  edification.  The  Rustic  Letters ,  which  bear  his  name, 
are  probably  of  Athenian  origin ;  they  are  idyllic  in  tone,  and  are 
inspired  by  the  Middle  and  New  Attic  Comedy1. 

A  vast  variety  of  erudition  has  been  preserved  by  Athenaeus 
of  Naucratis,  who  lived  at  Rome  under  Commodus 
and  his  successors.  His  comprehensive  work,  en¬ 
titled  Aet7rvocro^)tcrrat  or  ‘  Doctors  at  dinner  ’,  originally  consisted 
of  thirty  books.  It  was  abridged  into  fifteen  ;  and  it  is  this 
abridgement  that  has  come  down  to  us  in  an  incomplete  form. 
The  scene  is  laid  at  the  house  of  the  Roman  pontiff  Larentius ; 
and  all  kinds  of  accomplishments, — grammar,  poetry,  rhetoric, 
music,  philosophy  and  medicine, — are  represented  among  the 
many  interlocutors,  some  of  whom  bear  famous  names,  such  as 
Plutarch,  Arrian,  Galen  and  Ulpian.  The  reference  (286  e)  to 
the  death  of  Ulpian  (228  a.d.)  shows  that  the  work  was  produced 
after  that  date.  It  is  an  encyclopaedia  under  the  disguise  of 
a  dialogue.  Food  and  drink,  cups  and  cookery,  stories  of  famous 
banquets,  scandalous  anecdotes,  specimens  of  ancient  riddles  and 
drinking  songs,  and  disquisitions  on  instruments  of  music,  are 
only  part  of  the  miscellaneous  fare  which  is  here  provided.  To 
the  quotations  in  Athenaeus  we  are  indebted  for  our  knowledge 
of  passages  from  about  700  ancient  writers  who  would  otherwise 
be  unknown  to  us,  and,  in  particular,  for  the  preservation  of  the 
greater  part  of  the  extant  remains  of  the  Middle  and  New  Attic 
Comedy.  We  also  owe  to  him  the  preservation  of  the  celebrated 
scolio?i  of  Callistratus  on  Harmodius  and  Aristogeiton  (p.  695) 2 3. 

Rhetoric  is  represented  in  this  age  by  Apsines  of  Gadara 
(c.  190 — 250),  who  taught  at  Athens  c.  235-8,  and 
was  a  friend  of  Philostratus  ‘  the  Athenian  ’,  and  a 
rival  (c.  244-9)  of  Fronto  of  Emesa.  His  speeches 
have  perished,  but  part  of  his  teaching  survives  in  his  Rhetoric* , 
which  contains  nothing  essentially  new.  Its  aim  is  purely 
practical ;  it  gives  few  rules,  but  it  happily  illustrates  them  by 
many  examples.  The  author  appears  also  to  have  written  a 


Rhetoricians. 

Apsines 


1  Christ,  §  529s;  Croiset,  v  774-7. 

2  ed.  Kaibel,  1887-90;  cp.  Christ,  §  532s;  Croiset,  v  778 — 780. 

3  Spengel’s  Rhet.  Gr.  i  331 — 414. 


XIX.] 


ATHENAEUS.  CASSIUS  LONGINUS. 


331 


commentary  on  Demosthenes1.  The  Rhetoric  of  Minucianus2 
was  regarded  as  a  classic  and  was  expounded  by 

0  x  Minucianus 

Porphyry.  It  was  also  expounded  by  Menander 
of  Laodicea,  probably  the  Menander  mentioned  in  the  scholia  to 
Demosthenes  and  Aristides.  The  name  of  Menander  is  also 
borne  by  two  treatises  still  extant3,  the  first  of 

.  .  Menander 

which  is  ascribed  by  Bursian  to  Menander  and 
the  second  to  Genethlius,  while  these  ascriptions  are  reversed  by 
Nitsche5.  In  the  first  the  various  types  of  epideictic  discourse 
are  distinguished ;  and  the  sources  from  which  they  derive  their 
material,  classified.  Hymns  to  the  gods  are  divided  into  nine 
classes,  and  poets  named  as  examples  of  each.  The  ‘Praises  of 
Cities  ’,  ‘  Harbours  ’  and  ‘  Bays  ’,  and  the  proper  method  of  com¬ 
posing  an  encomium  on  an  Acropolis,  are  among  the  many 
matters  treated  in  this  work.  The  second  treatise  deals  with 
forms  of  compliment,  condolence  etc.6 

The  most  eminent  rhetorician  of  the  third  century  was  Cassius 
Longinus  (c.  220 — 273),  the  nephew  and  heir  of  L  ng.nus 
Fronto  of  Emesa,  the  pupil  of  Origen,  the  admirer 
of  Plotinus,  the  preceptor  of  Porphyry,  and  the  minister  of  Queen 
Zenobia.  He  studied  at  Alexandria,  taught  for  thirty  years  at 
Athens,  and  ended  his  days  at  Palmyra  as  the  counsellor  of 
Zenobia,  whom  he  nobly  supported  in  her  resistance  to  Aurelian, 
who  put  him  to  death  in  273.  Of  his  treatise  On  the  Chief  End 
(7T€pl  reXovs)  only  an  extensive  fragment  remains7.  He  also  wrote 
a  Neo-Platonic  treatise  ( -rrepl  apx^v),  but  Plotinus,  after  reading  it, 
remarked  that  Longinus  was  a  scholar  (cfriXoXoyos),  but  not  a 
philosopher8.  As  a  rhetorician,  he  composed  several  works  ;  and 
we  still  possess  part  of  his  treatise  on  Rhetoric  imbedded  in  that 
of  Apsines,  and  first  identified  by  Ruhnken  as  the  work  of 

1  Schol.  on  Dem.  Lept.  p.  458,  9;  and  on  Hermogenes,  v  517  Walz.  Cp. 
Pauly- Wissowa,  s.v.  and  Croiset,  v  781  f. 

2  Spengel,  i  415—424. 

3  ib.  iii  329 — 446. 

4  Bayer.  Akad.  1882,  Abt.  3. 

8  Berlin  (1883);  Bursian ’s  Jahresb.  xlvi  98  f. 

6  Croiset,  v  782  f ;  Saintsbury,  i  104  f. 

7  Porphyry,  Vit.  Plot  ini,  §  20. 

8  ib.  §  14. 

/ 


' 


332 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Longinus 1.  It  is  little  more  than  a  collection  of  practical 
observations  on  ‘  invention  ’,  arrangement,  style,  delivery,  and 
the  art  of  memory2.  It  owed  its  reputation  to  the  fact  that  it 
was  found  simple,  short  and  easy  to  remember,  as  compared  with 
the  earlier  Rhetoric  of  Hermogenes3.  The  studies  of  Longinus 
ranged  over  philosophy,  rhetoric  and  criticism ;  in  the  opinion 
of  Porphyry,  he  was  the  first  of  critics4,  while  Eunapius  describes 
him  as  a  ‘living  library  and  a  walking  museum’5.  He  produced 
two  editions  of  a  treatise  on  Attic  phrases,  and  several  works  on 
Homer6 7;  and  his  Homeric  problems  had  their  influence  on  a 
similar  work  by  his  pupil,  Porphyry.  It  was  his  high  renown 
as  a  critic  that  led  to  the  conjecture  of  the  copyists  that  he 
was  the  author  of  the  treatise  On  the  Sublime  (p.  282);  and  there 
are  some  points  of  coincidence  with  that  treatise  in  the  fragments 
of  his  Philosophical  Discourses  \ 

Materials  for  a  history  of  Philosophy  existed  at  an  early  date 
in  the  form  of  documents  preserved  by  certain 
schools.  These  had  •  been  utilised  in  the  lives 
written  by  writers  such  as  Aristoxenus,  Speusippus, 
Hermippus  and  Antigonus  of  Carystus ;  in  the  lists  of  the  suc¬ 
cessive  heads  of  each  school  drawn  up  by  Sotion  and  Heracleides 
Lembus ;  and  in  the  summaries  of  the  opinions  held  in  one  or 
other  school,  as  stated  by  Theophrastus,  Areius  Didymus,  and 
Aetius8.  But  the  history  of  Philosophy  had  still  to  be  written, 
and  it  is  only  an  uncritical  compilation  that  is  supplied  by 
Diogenes  Laertius  (of  Laerte  in  Cilicia),  who  may  be  placed  early 
in  the  third  century.  He  ends  his  account  of  the  Sceptics  with 
the  immediate  successor  of  Sextus  Empiricus  (ix  116),  and  he 
says  nothing  of  Neo-Platonism.  His  work  is  dedicated  to  a  lady 


Diogenes 

Laertius 


1  Opusc.  183-5;  Wyttenbach’s  Life  of  Ruhnken,  p.  169,  quoted  in  Walz, 
Rhet.  Gr.  ix  p.  xxiii  f. 

2  Spengel,  i  299 — 320.  3  ib.  p.  321. 

4  Vit.  Plotini  20,  kpitikcjt&tov  koX  eWoyt /xut&tov,  and  21,  £v  icpLaei  irpuros. 

5  Vita  Porphyrii. 

6  Su'idas  mentions  airopruxaTa  and  Trp6(3\T)p.aTa  'Op.Tjpuca,  el  <pi\6cro<pos  ’'Op.rjpos 

etc. 

7  <pi\6\oyoi  o/JuXlai,  Walz,  Rhet.  Gr.  vi  225  (on  Sophocles) ;  vii  963  (irepl 
\t%eus  <tto/a</>&8ovs,  cp.  7 repl  rjpovs  iii  r,  xxxii  7). 

8  Diels,  Doxographi. 


XIX.] 


DIOGENES  LAERTIUS. 


333 


of  high  rank,  interested  in  philosophy  (iii  47,  ix  20).  It  aims 
at  enumerating  the  chief  representatives  of  each  school,  with 
brief  biographical  sketches  of  an  anecdotic  character,  a  list  of 
their  works  and  a  popular  statement  of  their  views.  The  first 
two  books  include  the  ‘  Seven  Wise  Men  of  Greece  ’,  the  earliest 
philosophers  down  to  Anaxagoras  and  Archelaus,  and  Socrates 
and  his  pupils  with  the  exception  of  Plato,  who  is  reserved  for 
book  iii.  Book  iv  is  on  the  Academics,  v  on  Aristotle  and  the 
Peripatetics,  vi  on  the  Cynics,  and  vii  on  the  Stoics  from  Zeno  to 
Chrysippus.  In  viii  we  return  to  the  earlier  age,  to  the  school 
of  Pythagoras,  with  Empedocles  and  Eudoxus  ;  in  ix  we  have 
a  confused  jumble  including  Heracleitus,  the  Eleatics,  the 
Atomists  and  the  Sceptics,  while  x  is  entirely  on  the  School  of 
Epicurus,  to  which  the  compiler  himself  appears  occasionally  to 
incline.  Even  in  the  case  of  Epicurus,  the  author  has  been 
convicted  of  gross  carelessness  in  the  use  of  his  authorities 1, 
while,  in  his  list  of  the  works  of  Aristotle,  he  follows  the  old 
Alexandrian  catalogue,  ignoring  the  fact  that  they  had  subse¬ 
quently  been  edited  in  a  fuller  form  by  Andronicus  of  Rhodes, 
in  the  time  of  Cicero.  The  work  appears  to  have  been  partly 
founded  on  the  works  of  Diodes  of  Magnesia  (imSpo/xr]  <£iAoo-o<£wi/ , 
first  century  b.c.),  and  Favorinus  of  Arles  ( Travro^airr]  la-Topia), 
with  literary  items  from  the  forgeries2  of  Lobon  of  Argos  (nepl 

TTOLrjTtov)  3. 

Late  in  the  second  and  early  in  the  third  century  is  the  age 
of  the  most  important  of  the  ancient  commen¬ 
tators  on  Aristotle,  Alexander  of  the  Carian  town  of^ph^odisias 
of  Aphrodisias.  He  flourished  under  Septimius 
Severus,  having  been  called  to  Athens  c.  198,  and  having  dedicated 
to  Severus  and  Caracalla  (not  later  than  2 1 1 )  his  work  On  Fate, 
which  is  an  inquiry  into  Aristotle’s  opinions  on  Fate  and  Free¬ 
will.  His  works,  which  are  of  special  value  in  connexion  with 
the  text  of  Aristotle  and  the  history  of  Greek  philosophy,  are 

1  Usener,  Epicurea,  xxi  f. 

2  Hiller  in  Rhein.  Mus.  xxxiii  518  f. 

3  F.  Nietzsche,  in  Rhein.  Mus.  xxiii — xxv,  and  Wilamowitz,  Phil.  Unt.  iv 
330-49.  Favorinus  alone  is  regarded  as  his  original  by  Maass,  Phil.  Unt., 
Heft  3  and  Rudolph,  Leifz.  Stud,  vii  126  (Christ  §  5143;  Croiset,  v  818 — 820). 


334 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Neo- 

Platonism 


largely  quoted  by  later  writers,  such  as  the  Neo-Platonists  Syrianus 
and  Simplicius.  Holding  aloof  from  the  mystical  tendencies  of 
the  Academics  of  his  time,  he  mainly  confined  himself  to  the 
interpretation  of  Aristotle.  His  extant  commentaries  deal  with 
the  First  Book  of  the  Analytics1 ,  the  Topica 2,  the  De  Sensu3  and 
the  Metaphysics 4.  He  is  also  the  author  of  several  independent 
treatises5.  About  half  of  his  voluminous  writings  were  edited 
and  translated  into  Latin  at  the  revival  of  learning ;  and  his 
genuine  works  have  been  recently  published,  mainly  by  the  Berlin 
Academy6. 

The  only  original  product  of  Greek  genius  in  the  third  century 
was  Neo-Platonism,  which  necessarily  involved  a 
renewed  study  of  the  teaching  of  Plato,  though  it 
attempted  to  combine  that  teaching  with  the  tenets 
of  other  schools  of  Greek  philosophy.  The  doctrines  of  those 
earlier  schools  had  already  been  partially  merged  with  one  another, 
and  had  also  been  blended  with  old  and  new  varieties  of  belief. 
This  tendency  had  shown  itself  in  Philo  Judaeus,  in  Plutarch  and 
Numenius  and  (early  in  this  century)  in  Alexander  of  Aphrodisias, 
the  commentator  on  Aristotle.  In  the  same  century  the  verbal 
study  of  Plato’s  text  was  exemplified  in  the  Platonic  lexicon  of 
the  sophist  Timaeus7,  which  is  later  than  Porphyry  unless  the 
extract  from  that  Neo-Platonist  (.r.  v.  ox>x  rjKLo-Ta)  is  an  inter¬ 
polation. 

Neo-Platonism  is  generally  regarded  as  having  been  founded 
by  Ammonius  Saccas,  who  taught  at  Alexandria  during  the  first 
half  of  the  third  century,  but  did  not  reduce  his  teaching  to  a 
written  form.  Among  his  many  pupils  (c.  205 — 21 1)  was  the 
Christian  philosopher  Origen  (185 — 254),  who  in  203  succeeded 
Clement  as  head  of  the  Christian  School  of  Alex¬ 
andria.  He  was  the  first  great  scholar  among  the 
Greek  Fathers.  With  his  own  hand  he  supplied  himself  with 
transcripts  of  the  Greek  Classics,  but  sold  them  all  for  a  small 


Origen 


1  ed.  Wallies  (1883).  2  id .  (1891). 

3  ed.  Thurot  (1875).  4  Latest  ed.  Hayduck  (1891). 

5  Scripta  Minora,  ed.  Bruns  in  Suppl.  Ar.  ii. 

6  Gerke  in  Pauly-Wissowa,  i  1453  f. 

7  ed.  Ruhnken,  1789. 


XIX.] 


NEOPLATONISTS.  PLOTINUS. 


335 


sum  in  order  to  be  enabled  to  teach  others  without  receiving  any 
remuneration.  The  work  of  Origen  most  closely  connected  with 
Scholarship  was  his  Hexapla ,  an  edition  of  the  Old  Testament 
exhibiting  in  six  parallel  columns  the  Hebrew  text  and  the  same 
in  Greek  characters,  with  the  four  translations  by  Aquila,  Sym- 
machus,  the  *  Seventy  ’  and  Theodotion.  Seven  shorthand  writers 
and  as  many  copyists  took  part  in  it,  and  the  work  filled  fifty 
large  rolls  of  parchment ;  but  it  is  now  represented  by  fragments 
alone.  He  also  devoted  much  time  and  labour  to  the  text  of 
the  New  Testament.  As  a  commentator  he  holds  that  Scripture 
has  in  general  three  senses,  the  literal,  the  moral,  and  the  spiritual; 
and,  with  a  view  to  eliciting  the  last  of  these,  he  specially  favours 
the  allegorical  method  of  interpretation.  These  three  senses 
he  regards  as  corresponding  to  the  body,  soul  and  spirit,  which 
he  fancifully  describes  as  figured  in  the  water-pots  of  Cana 
*  containing  two  or  three  firkins  a-piece  ’  \  This  weakness  for 
allegorising  was  combined  with  a  wide  variety  of  learning.  Ac¬ 
cording  to  a  discourse  delivered  in  his  presence  in  239  by  his 
pupil,  Gregory  Thaumaturgus,  the  range  of  his  teaching  at 
Caesarea  included  dialectics,  physics,  geometry,  astronomy,  ethics, 
metaphysics  and  theology ;  while  he  is  described  by  Jerome 
(Ep.  70)  as  finding  in  Plato  and  Aristotle,  in  Numenius  and 
Cornutus,  support  for  the  doctrines  of  Christianity2. 

The  principles  of  Neo-Platonism  were  reduced  to  writing  by 
Plotinus  (204 — 270),  who  studied  under  Ammonius  ,  . 

'  ^  Plotinus 

Saccas  at  Alexandria  from  232  to  243,  and  spent 
the  remaining  twenty-six  years  of  his  life  at  Rome.  He  may 
justly  be  regarded  as  the  true  founder  of  Neo-Platonism,  in  so 
far  as  he  perpetuated  its  principles  in  a  written  form.  In  his 
class-room  1  the  later  Platonic  and  Aristotelian  commentators 
were  read3;  but  everywhere  an  original  turn  was  given  to  the 
discussions,  into  which  Plotinus  carried  the  spirit  of  Ammonius  ’ 4. 

1  Origen’s  Philocalia,  c.  12,  p.  19,  J.  A.  Robinson. 

2  Croiset,  v  845-55;  cp.  Christ,  §  682s,  Bigg’s  Christian  Platonists,  and 
Westcott  in  Diet.  Chr.  Biogr. 

3  Porph.  V.  Plot.  3. 

4  T.  Whittaker,  The  Neo- Platonists,  p.  33 ;  cp.  Bigg’s  Neoplatonism, 

p.  187. 


336 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


The  teaching  of  Plotinus  has  been  preserved  with  the  aid  of  his 
pupil,  Porphyry  (233 — c.  301-5),  in  six  groups  of  nine  books 
Porphyry  called  the  Enneades  \  Porphyry  had,  in  his  youth, 
known  Origen  at  Alexandria ;  and  had  been  a  pupil 
of  Cassius  Longinus  at  Athens.  It  was  from  Longinus  that  he 
received  the  name  of  ‘  Porphyrius  ’,  as  a  rendering  of  his  Tyrian 
name  of  Malchus,  or  ‘King’.  In  263  he  became  the  pupil 
of  Plotinus  in  Rome.  He  was  a  scholar  and  a  mathematician, 
as  well  as  a  philosopher  and  a  historian.  From  Porphyry  to 
Julian  one  of  the  principal  aims  of  Neo-Platonism  was  the  philo¬ 
sophic  defence  and  maintenance  of  paganism.  Porphyry’s  attacks 
on  Christianity,  which  were  mainly  concerned  with  historical 
criticism,  and  had  an  important  influence  on  Julian  ‘the  Apostate’, 
were  answered  by  Eusebius  and  others.  His  History  of  Philosophy 
was  mainly  confined  to  Plato,  but  it  included  a  Life  of  Pythagoras , 
which  is  extant.  He  was  among  the  last  of  the  writers  on 
philosophy  who  had  a  first-hand  knowledge  of  the  writings  of 
his  predecessors ;  and  he  quotes  Longinus1  2  as  saying  that,  with 
the  exception  of  Plotinus  and  A  melius  (a  pupil  of  Plotinus), 
philosophers  had  ceased  to  do  anything  more  than  collect  and 
expound  and  expand  the  opinions  of  their  predecessors.  In 
extreme  old  age  he  wrote  the  Life  of  Plotinus ;  and  his  own 
expositions  of  his  master’s  teaching  are  still  represented  in  his 
Sententiae3.  He  also  compiled  a  work  on  Chronology,  which 
is  among  the  authorities  followed  by  Eusebius4.  In  the  domain 
of  Scholarship  he  produced  a  treatise  on  ‘  philological  research  ’ 
(<fu\o\oyo<s  lo-ropta),  and  on  ‘  grammatical  questions  ’  (ypafi/xarLKal 
a7roptat),  as  well  as  an  ‘  introduction  ’  to  Thucydides,  and  to  the 
Categories  of  Aristotle.  His  Eisagoge ,  or  introduction  to  the 
latter,  as  translated  by  Boethius  (p.  240),  had  an  important 
influence  on  the  thought  of  the  Middle  Ages ;  his  commentary 
on  the  Categories  exists  in  fragments  only5.  He  also  wrote  on 


1  ed.  Creuzer  (Oxford,  1835),  (Paris,  1850). 

2  Frag.  5,  5. 

3  T.  Whittaker,  pp.  112-4. 

4  Frag.  Hist.  Gr.  iii  688  f. 

5  Porphyrii  Isagoge  et  in  Aristotelis  Categorias  commentarium,  ed.  Busse 
in  Comm.  Arist.  iv,  with  Boethius’  translation  of  the  Isagoge  (1887).  The 


XIX.] 


ARISTIDES  QUINTILIANUS. 


337 


‘  the  philosophy  of  Homer  and  on  the  profit  which  kings  might 
derive  from  his  poems.  This  department  of  his  literary  activity 
is  now  represented  only  by  some  fragments  of  his  Homeric 
Questions  (O^piKa  CvTVlxaTa)  \  which  have  several  points  of 
contact  with  Aristotle’s  Homeric  Problems 2,  and  by  his  work  On 
the  Cave  of  the  Nymphs 3.  In  the  latter,  the  Cave  in  Ithaca, 
which  is  the  theme  of  the  beautiful  description  in  Od.  xiii  102 — 112, 
is  treated  as  an  allegory  of  the  universe ;  the  cave  itself  and  the 
nymphs,  the  two  entrances  into  the  cave,  the  vessels  of  stone 
and  the  bees,  are  all  of  them  allegorically  interpreted  in  a  highly 
imaginative  composition  marked  with  superabundant  learning 
and  (happily)  enriched  with  numerous  citations.  Many  moral 
sentences  borrowed  from  Sextus  and  Epicurus  are  imbedded  in 
his  Letter  to  Marcella 4;  while  his  treatise  De  Abstinentia  fa  pi 
a.7r e/xi J/vy^oiv),  in  which  vegetarianism  is  recommended  to  those 
alone  who  lead  a  philosophic  life5,  has  preserved  for  us  the  sub¬ 
stance  of  the  treatise  of  Theophrastus  On  Piety 6,  besides  many 
quotations  from  the  poets,  e.g.  the  important  fragment  of  the 
Cretes  of  Euripides.  The  work  on  Homer’s  Life  and  Poems, 
preserved  in  Plutarch’s  Moralia ,  is  sometimes  ascribed  to  Por¬ 
phyry.  The  pleasing  effect  there  recognised  in  the  figure  homoeo- 
teleuton,  has  led  to  its  being  credited  with  an  early  recognition  of 
the  charm  of  rhyme7. 

The  theory  of  Music  was  treated  by  Aristides  Quintilianus,, 
who  is  certainly  later  than  Cicero8,  and  probably 
later  than  Porphyry.  His  description  of  the  descent  QUintiHanua 
of  the  Soul  from  the  region  of  the  Ether,  and  of 

Isagoge  was  also  translated  into  Syriac,  and  the  work  of  a  Hellenised  Syrian 
was  thus  the  means  of  introducing  his  countrymen  to  the  study  of  Aristotle 
(A.  Baumstark,  Aristoteles  bei  den  Syrern). 

1  ed.  H.  Schrader  (1880).  Cp.  Grafenhan,  iii  298!. 

2  Ar.  frag.  142,  164,  178,  Rose. 

3  Nauck,  ed.  2  (1886),  with  Vita  Pythag.,  De  Abstinentia  and  Ad 
Marcellam. 

4  Usener’s  Epicurea ,  p.  lviii  f ;  cp.  A.  Zimmern,  Porphyry  to  Marcella 
(1896). 

5  T.  Whittaker,  pp.  114-122.  6  Bernays,  Theophrastos  (1866). 

7  Trench,  Sacred  Latin  Poetry,  p.  302  (Saintsbury,  i  68  f). — On  Porphyry 
in  general,  see  Croiset,  v  831-841,  and  cp.  Christ,  §  62 13. 

8  irepl  /jLovaiKrjs,  ii  6. 


S. 


22 


338 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP.  XIX. 


its  passing  through  that  of  the  Moon1,  is  distinctly  Neo-Platonic, 
and  can  be  closely  paralleled  by  a  passage  in  Porphyry2.  The 
value  of  his  work  depends  mainly  on  its  indebtedness  to  Aris- 
toxenus  of  Tarentum,  and  to  still  earlier  authorities,  such  as 
Damon  of  Athens,  the  friend  of  Plato3. 

1  ire  pi  p,ov(TLKTjs  ii  17. 

2  Sententiae ,  32. 

3  von  Jan  in  Pauly- Wissowa,  ii  894. 


From  Codex  Parisinus  of  a  student’s  copy  of  a  Commentary  on 
Porphyry’s  Introduction  to  Aristotle’s  Categories  (1223  a.d.). 

(E.  M.  Thompson’s  Palaeography ,  p.  172.) 


toijtuv,  ire?  elcriv ,  Kai  ai  virb\onroi’  ottov  Sb  p.La  <  ^rXeLireraL  > ,  ckci  kclI 
Traocu  erXeLirovai.  dpTjKdres  ras  Koivwvicas  x(t3P‘*)><7lt3p.ev  Kai  eiri  ras  8ia<f>opas. 
Sevrtpa  8b  Siacpopa  avTiov  <  in rbpx^Tai,  >  6  Tpbiros  tt) s  Karrjyoplas *  ai  p.bv  yap  ev 
rcot  tL  ecrTiy  Karrjyoc  povures>  uxrirep  rb  ybvos  Kai  to  eX8os‘  ai  8b  bv  run  oiroXov 
<  tL  ecrriv  >  Cjoirep  7/  Siaipopa ,  Kai  to  i8iov  Kai  to  a vp.fi e^rjKbs. 


David  the  Armenian. 


Conspectus  of  Greek  Literature,  &c.,  300 — 600  A.D 


Roman 

Emperors 


305ConstantiusI 

3o6ConstantineI 


337  f 

-40  I  Constan- 
J  tine  II 
-61  j  Constan- 
tius  II 

-50  \Constans  I 


361  Julian 

363  Jovian 

364  Valens 

378  Theodosius  I 
395  Arcadius 

400 - 


Poets 


362  Apollinaris 
of  Laodicea, 
d.  c.  383-92 
Quintus  Smyr- 
naeus 


408  Theodo¬ 
sius  II 


450  Marcian 
457  Leo  I 


474  Leo  II 
474  Zeno 


491  Anastasius  I 

500 - 


518  Justin  I 
527  Justinian  I 


565  Justin  II 
578  Tiberius  II 
582  Mauricius 


600- 


Palladas 


c.  410  Nonnus 


Eudocia 


Anatolius,  bp  of 
Constantinople 
449-58 


Tryphiodorus 

Colluthus 

Musaeus 


Christodorus 

Romanus 


Paulus  Silen- 
tiarius 
Agathias 
c.  536—582 


Chronologers 

Orators  and 

Scholars  and 

Other  Writers 

&  Historians 

Rhetoricians 

Critics 

of  Prose 

313  Eusebius 

Iamblichus 

265 — 340 

c.  280 — c.  330 

335  Philostratus 

Ulpian 

326  Athanasius 

III  Later 

335  Dexippus 

295—373 

Eikones 

?  Callistratus 

340  Proaeresius 

365  Theon 

367  Epiphanius 

276—368 

315—403 

Olympiodorus  I 

Gregory 

Libanius 

Nazianzen 

314— c.  393 

c.  330 —c.  390 

Themistius 

371  Basil  g 

310-20 — c.  394 

331—379 

Himerius 

Gregory  of 

c.  315—386 

Nyssa 

c-  343 — c-  396 

381  Chrysostom 

fAmmonius 

344-7—404 

391  ^Helladius 

394  Theodore  of 

Theodosius 

Mopsuestia  !; 

Aphthonius 

c.  350—403 

406  Synesius 

405  Eunapius, 

Troilus 

Stephanus 

c.  370— c.  413 

L  ives  of Philo- 

Byzantinus 

Isidore  of 

sophers  a?idSo- 

Pelusium 

phists 

425  Orus 

c.  370—450 

425  Orion 

412  Cyril  of 

Alexandria 

429  Theodoret 

380—444 

386 — c.  458 

415  d.  of  Hypatia 

439  Socrates 

Syrianus 

431  d.  of  Plutar- 

chus 

443  Sozomen 

4i5-5oHierocles 

450  Zosimus 

Hesychius 

431-38  Syrianus 

Alexandrinus 

438-85  Proclus 

410—485 

c.  450  Syriac 

C  om  men  ta  to  rs 

• 

on  A  ristotle 

Stobaeus 

485  Marinus 

480 — 520  ‘  Dio- 

Procopius  of 

Hermeias 

nysius  Areo- 

Gaza 

Timotheus  of 

pagita’ 

John  of  Antioch 

Marcellinus 

Gaza 

Aristaenetus 

5i8Zachariah  of 

Sopater 

Ammonius  son 

Isidorus 

Mitylene 

of  Hermeias 

Hegias 

533-6  Procopius 

520  Damascius 

ft-  527—562 

Choricius 

Simplicius 

Petrus  Patricius 

Agapetus 

Joannes  Philo- 

7?-  534—562 

ponus 

529  The  School 

533  Nonnosus 

of  A  thens  !’ 

Agathias 

closed  11 

c.  536^-582 

c.  550  Hesychius 

551  John  Lydus 

of  Miletus 

563  JohnMalalas 

Joannes  Charax 

559  Anastasius 

c.  500-73 

564  Olympiodo- 

of  Antioch 

581  Theophanes 

rus  II 

d.  599 

582  Menander 

Protector 

?  David  the  Ar- 

593  John  of 

menian 

Epiphania 

?  Choeroboscus 

593  Evagrius 

CHAPTER  XX. 


GREEK  SCHOLARSHIP  IN  THE  FOURTH  CENTURY. 

The  fourth  century  begins  a  few  years  before  the  abdication 
of  Diocletian  (305).  By  the  end  of  its  first  quarter 
(324),  Christianity  was  recognised  as  the  religion  CenturyOUrth 
of  the  State,  and  Byzantium  chosen  as  the  site 
of  the  new  capital,  which  was  henceforth  to  become  a  new  centre 
of  Greek  learning.  Before  two-thirds  of  the  century  had  passed, 
a  pagan  reaction  had  intervened  during  the  brief  reign  of  Julian 
(361-3).  A  historian  of  the  eleventh  century,  who  assigns  to 
his  reign  the  last  of  the  pagan  oracles,  informs  us,  that  the 
emperor  sent  envoys  to  restore  the  temple  of  Apollo  at  Delphi, 
but  the  work  was  no  sooner  begun,  than  the  envoys  were  bidden 
to  return  with  the  following  response  : — 

curare  Tip  /SacriX^t,  x°LlULaL  *"6x6  Saida Xos  auXa. 
ovk£ti  3>ot/3os  ?x€l  Ka\ti[3av,  ov  /advrida  Sd4>vr]v, 
oi)  iraydv  \a\eou<rav‘  airtcrfieTO  Kai  \d\ou  vSup1. 

Tell  ye  the  king:  to  the  ground  hath  fallen  the  glorious  dwelling; 

Now  no  longer  hath  Phoebus  a  cell,  or  a  laurel  prophetic; 

Hushed  is  the  voiceful  spring,  and  quenched  the  oracular  fountain. 

By  the  end  of  the  fourth  century,  the  Serapeum  of  Alexandria 
had  been  destroyed  (391),  the  Senate  of  Rome  had  (nominally 
at  least)  become  Christian  (394),  the  Olympian  festival  had  been 
abolished,  the  overthrow  of  paganism  completed  under  Theo¬ 
dosius  I,  and  the  rule  of  the  Roman  Empire  divided  on  his 
death  between  his  two  sons,  Arcadius,  who  ruled  in  the  East, 
and  Honorius  in  the  West  (395). 

In  this  time  of  transition  from  paganism  to  Christianity,  the 
principal  Greek  authors  on  the  Christian  side  were  Eusebius, 

1  Cedrenus,  Hist.  Comp .  i  304,  p.  532  Bonn. 


/ 


342 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Athanasius,  Epiphanius,  Basil,  Gregory  of  Nazianzus,  Gregory  of 
Nyssa,  Chrysostom,  and  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia.  Of  these, 

Eusebius  (265 — 340),  the  devoted  pupil  of  Pam- 

Eusebius 

philus,  in  whose  library  he  laid  the  foundation  of 
his  vast  erudition  and  whose  name  he  gratefully  assumed  by 
calling  himself  Eusebius  Pamphili,  was  bishop  of  Caesarea  in 
Palestine  (313 — 340).  He  is  best  known  as  a  historian  and 
chronologer.  In  the  previous  century  a  sketch  of  the  comparative 
chronology  of  the  history  of  the  Jews  and  Gentiles  had  been 
drawn  up  by  Julius  Africanus,  ending  with  221  a.d.  This  was 
one  of  the  principal  works  incorporated  by  Eusebius  in  his 
Chronicle.  The  latter  was  in  two  parts,  (1)  an  epitome  of  uni¬ 
versal  history,  and  (2)  chronological  tables,  the  whole  constituting 
the  greatest  chronological  work  produced  by  the  ancient  world. 
It  is  the  foundation  of  most  of  our  knowledge  of  the  dates  of 
Greek  and  Roman  history,  down  to  325  a.d.  In  part  (1),  the 
first  authority  quoted  for  Greek  history  is  Castor  of  Rhodes 
(60  b.c.),  who  supplies  the  lists  of  the  kings  of  Sicyon,  Argos 
and  Athens.  Next  comes  a  list  of  Olympian  victors,  doubtless 
taken  from  Julius  Africanus,  ending  with  the  Olympic  victor  of 
220  a.d.  ;  the  kings  of  Corinth  and  Sparta  from  Diodorus;  of 
Macedonia,  Thessaly  and  Syria  from  Porphyry,  who  had  previously 
been  followed  in  the  list  of  the  Ptolemies.  The  epitome  of 
Roman  history  begins  with  excerpts  from  Dionysius  of  Hali¬ 
carnassus,  Diodorus  and  Castor,  and  mentions  Cassius  Longinus, 
Phlegon  of  Tralles  and  Porphyry  among  the  authorities  followed. 
The  author’s  object  was  to  show  that  the  Books  of  Moses  were 
earlier  than  any  Greek  writings,  but  scholars  may  be  grateful 
to  him  for  having  carried  his  work  far  beyond  the  narrow  limits 
necessary  to  prove  that  point.  The  Greek  of  Eusebius  survives 
in  excerpts  only ;  for  our  knowledge  of  the  rest  we  have  to  rely 
on  the  Latin  version  by  Jerome,  and  the  Armenian  translation, 
first  published  in  18181.  The  Ecclesiastical  History  of  Eusebius 
(ending  with  324  a.d.)  was  the  first  of  its  kind;  while  his  Prae- 
paratio  Evangelica 2  includes  a  survey  of  the  various  forms  of 

1  Eusebi  Chronicorum  libri  duo ,  ed.  Schoene  1866-75;  also  Chronicorum 
Libri ,  ed.  Fotheringham.  Cp.  Salmon  in  Diet.  Chr.  Biogr.  ii  348-55. 

2  ed.  E.  H.  Gifford. 


XX.] 


EUSEBIUS.  BASIL. 


343 


religious  belief,  with  numerous  citations  from  the  philosophers 
of  Greece,  as  many  as  twenty-three  of  the  dialogues  of  Plato 
being  quoted,  and  more  than  fifty  passages  from  the  Laws  alone  \ 

Athanasius  of  Alexandria  (295 — 373),  the  champion  of  ortho¬ 
doxy,  with  all  his  subtlety  of  dialectic,  is  more  interesting  as  a 
man  of  action  than  as  an  orator  and  an  author.  Epiphanius 
(315 — 403),  the  head  of  a  school  of  learning  near  Jerusalem  from 
335  t0  367,  and,  for  the  rest  of  his  life,  bishop  of  Constantia 
(the  ancient  Salamis  in  Cyprus),  gives  in  his  Refutation  of  Heresies 
a  brief  account  of  the  various  forms  of  Greek  philosophy2.  Basil 
(331 — 379),  bishop  of  Caesarea  in  Cappadocia, 
and  Gregory  of  Nazianzus  in  the  same  region 
(c.  330 — c.  390),  were  pupils  at  Athens  of  the  Christian  teacher 
Proaeresius  and  of  the  pagan  Himerius.  Both  alike  protest 
against  the  prejudice  with  which  the  ancient  Greek  literature  was 
regarded  by  many  Christians,  the  former  devoting  a  special  dis¬ 
course  to  proving  by  numerous  citations  that  that  literature  is 
full  of  precepts  and  examples  calculated  to  elevate  the  mind  and 
to  prepare  it  for  Christian  teaching3.  Basil  describes  his  retreat 
on  the  river  Iris  in  Pontus,  where  he  spent  five  years  in  founding 
the  earliest  monasteries  of  the  East  and  in  making  selections  from 
the  works  of  Origen,  as  more  beautiful  than  the  island  of  Calypso 
(. Ep .  14 ;  358  a.d.).  When  the  envoy  sent  by  Basil  to  Pope 
Damasus  for  aid  in  contending  against  the  semi-Arians  of  the 
East  returned  without  result,  Basil  expressed  in  a  quotation  from 
Homer  (//.  ix  698  f)  his  regret  that  he  had  ever  approached  so 
proud  a  personage  (. Ep .  239).  In  his  Hexaemeron  he  imitates 
Philo  Judaeus,  and  in  his  turn  is  imitated  by  Ambrose.  The 
Funeral  Sermon  on  Basil,  a  masterpiece  of  sacred  eloquence,  was 
preached  by  his  friend  Gregory  of  Nazianzus.  The  latter  is  best 
known  as  an  eloquent  preacher;  but  he  is  also  a  skilful  writer 

1  Lightfoot  Diet.  Chr.  Bio%r.  ii  331  b. 

2  Printed  separately  by  Diels  in  his  Doxographi ,  pp.  587 — 593,  and  severely 
criticised  on  pp.  175-7. 

3  trpos  robs  veov?  ottus  av  ei-  eWrjviKCbv  <j(pe\oivTo  \6yiov,  ed.  Sommer  (1894), 
Bach  (1901).  Cp.  De  Studio  S.  S.  ad  Greg.  Ep.  ii,  and  Gregor.  Naz.  Funeral 
Sermon  on  Basil,  p.  323  c  Morell,  on  profane  education,  tjv  ol  7roX\oi  Xpianavwv 
Sicltttijovoiv,  ws  iirifiovKov  /ecu  o(f>a\epav  Kai  Qeov  irbppu  fiaWovoav,  kclk&s  eiSbres 
(Croiset,  v  937). 


344 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


of  hexameter,  elegiac,  iambic  and  ionic  verse  of  the  ordinary 
classical  type,  varied  twice  by  metres  of  a  new  kind  depending 
not  on  quantity  but  on  accent.  In  his  verses  he  occasionally' 
borrows  from  Empedocles.  The  cento  from  the  Bacchae  and 
other  plays  of  Euripides,  once  ascribed  to  him,  is  now  recognised 
as  a  production  of  the  Middle  Ages1.  Basil’s  brother,  Gregory 
of  Nyssa  ( c .  343 — c.  396),  while  he  incidentally  shows  us  that 
Christian  youth  still  continued  to  be  instructed  in  pagan  poetry2, 
is  mainly  a  theologian  animated  in  exegesis  by  Origen’s  partiality 
for  the  spiritual,  figurative  and  allegorical  form  of  interpretation, 
which  was  strongly  opposed  by  Theodore  of  Mopsuestia  (c.  350 — 
403)  and  by  Chrysostom.  Chrysostom  (344-7 — 404),  who  exhibits 
the  art  of  a  Demosthenes  and  an  Isocrates  super- 

Chrysostom 

added  to  a  great  natural  genius,  was  a  pupil  of 
Libanius  at  Antioch,  where  for  sixteen  years  (381 — 397)  he 
wielded  by  his  extraordinarily  eloquent  discourses  a  far  wider 
influence  than  he  ever  attained  during  his  brief  and  troubled 
tenure  of  the  patriarchate  of  Constantinople  (398 — 403).  Theo¬ 
dore  of  Mopsuestia  ( c .  350 — 428)  is  highly  esteemed  as  a  biblical 
expositor  and  a  theological  controversialist.  His 
Mopsuestia °f  opposition  to  the  allegorical  method  of  interpreta¬ 
tion  is  noticed  by  Photius  {Cod.  3).  He  prefers 
the  grammatical  and  historical  method  which  he  had  inherited 
from  Chrysostom’s  master  and  his  own,  Diodorus  of  Antioch ; 
and  in  the  exegesis  of  the  New  Testament,  he  shows  the  instincts 
of  a  scholar  in  noticing  minor  words  which  are  often  overlooked, 
in  attending  to  niceties  of  grammar  and  punctuation,  and  in 
keenly  discussing  doubtful  readings3. 

The  mystic  and  Neo-Platonist,  Iamblichus,  died  about  330  a.d. 
This  enables  us  to  infer  the  approximate  date  of  the  Neo-Platonist 
Dexippus,  who  refers  to  Iamblichus  in  the  introduction  to  his 
extant  Commentary  on  the  Categories  of  Aristotle4. 
Dexippus  is  also  the  author  of  a  dialogue  on  the 

Apart  from  Neo- 
Platonists,  the  principal  writers  of  prose,  on  the  pagan  side,  were 


Dexippus 


criticisms  of  Plotinus  on  the  Categories 5. 


1  ed.  Brambs  (1885).  2  ii  p. 

3  H.  B.  Swete  in  Diet.  Chr.  Biogr.  iv  947  a. 

4  ed.  Busse,  1888. 


179. 


ed.  Spengel,  1859. 


XX.] 


CHRYSOSTOM.  THEODORE.  HIMERIUS. 


345 


Himerius,  Themistius,  Libanius  and  Julian.  Himerius,  born  at 
Prusa  (< c .  315),  was  for  nearly  forty  years  a  teacher 

•  Himerius 

at  Athens.  Of  his  seventy-one  Declamations  only 
thirty-four  have  survived.  Some  of  these  are  rhetorical  exercises 
on  themes  such  as  the  defence  of  Demosthenes  by  Hypereides, 
or  the  plea  of  Demosthenes  for  the  recall  of  Aeschines.  Others 
are  of  the  nature  of  inaugural  orations  at  the  beginning  of  an 
Academic  course.  One  of  the  latter  is  as  solemn  a  discourse 
as  that  of  a  hierophant  at  Eleusis  : — ‘  Before  the  ceremony  opens 
which  is  to  give  you  access  to  the  sanctuary,  let  me  distinctly 
warn  you  what  you  should  do,  and  what  you  should  avoid 5  \  In 
another  he  tells  his  ‘freshmen’  that,  to  lead  his  flock,  he  has 
no  occasion  to  resort  to  the  rod,  but  is  content  to  rely  on  melody 
alone :  ‘  what  blended  sound  of  flute  and  pipes  can  touch  your 
souls  like  the  simple  accents  of  this  Chair?’2  In  an  earlier  age 
he  might  have  been  an  elegant  poet  instead  of  a  semi-poetical 
rhetorician.  He  is  far  from  being  a  profound  student  of  Thucy¬ 
dides  and  Demosthenes ;  he  shows  a  much  deeper  interest  in 
poetry.  He  borrows  largely  from  the  ancient  lyric  poets,  supplying 
us  with  prose  paraphrases  of  some  of  the  lost  odes  of  Alcaeus3, 
Sappho4  and  Anacreon5,  and  also  showing  his  familiarity  with 
Stesichorus,  Ibycus,  Simonides  and  Pindar6. 

Themistius  (born  c.  310-20)  declined  important  appointments 
in  Rome  and  Antioch,  and  spent  most  of  his  life 

.  .  .  Themistius 

at  Constantinople,  where  he  had  a  high  reputation 
as  an  eloquent  teacher.  He  enjoyed  the  favour  of  the  emperors 
Constantius  II,  Julian,  Jovian,  Valens  and  Theodosius,  and  was 
entrusted  with  the  education  of  Arcadius,  but  probably  did  not 
live  to  see  his  pupil  ascend  the  throne  of  the  East  (395).  We 
possess  part  of  his  early  work,  his  Paraphrases  of  Aristotle ,  the 
portion  still  extant  being  a  somewhat  prolix  exposition  of  the 

1  xxii  7 ;  xv  3  (Capes,  University  Life  in  Ancient  Athens ,  p.  80  f);  cp. 
Bernhardy,  Gr.  Litt.  i  6604;  Juleville’s  L' Ecole  cTAthenes ;  and  Herzberg, 
Geschichte  Griechenlcuids ,  iii  311-57. 

2  xv  2  ;  Capes,  p.  ii4f.  3  xiv  10. 

4  Frag-  i33>  M7  Bergk. 

6  Frag.  124-6  Bergk. 

6  xxii  5;  xiii  7;  Teuber,  Qnaest.  Himerianae  (1882);  ed.  Diibner  (1849)  ; 
cp.  Christ,  §  6023,  and  Croiset,  v  869  f. 


346 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[chap. 


Later  Analytics ,  the  Physics ,  the  De  Anima ,  and  some  minor 
treatises  \  His  paraphrase  of  the  Metaphysics ,  Book  A,  was 
translated  into  Arabic  (in  century  ix),  and  thence  into  Hebrew 
(1255),  and  Latin  (1 5 76)1  2.  In  his  teaching  he  appears  to  have 
assigned  a  prominent  place  to  the  Categories .  When  he  is 
charged  with  making  his  pupils  presumptuous  and  conceited,  he 
inquires :  ‘  have  you  ever  heard  of  any  of  my  friends  speaking 
proudly  or  behaving  haughtily  on  the  strength  of  synonyms  or 
homonyms  or  paronyms  ?  ’ 3  His  original  work  consists  mainly 
of  official  harangues.  Under  several  successive  emperors  he  was 
practically  the  public  orator  of  Constantinople,  and  the  noblest 
use  which  he  made  of  that  position  was  to  plead  repeatedly  for 
toleration  in  matters  of  religious  belief  and  worship.  He  was 
highly  esteemed  by  Christians  and  pagans  alike4.  His  Christian 
correspondent  Gregory  Nazianzen  calls  him  ‘the  king  of  elo¬ 
quence  7  (Ep.  140).  He  names,  as  the  five  Classics  studied  in 
Constantinople,  Thucydides,  Isocrates,  Demosthenes,  Plato  and 
Aristotle5;  as  a  sixth,  he  mentions  Aristophanes6.  He  shows 
us  his  general  relation  to  the  ancient  Classics  in  a  composition 
addressed  to  his  father  (Or.  20),  where  we  find  him  vaguely 
referring  to  the  ‘  golden  Menander,  and  Euripides,  and  Sophocles, 
and  fair  Sappho  and  noble  Pindar  ’,  while  he  quotes  and  actually 
discusses  various  authors  in  his  Basanistes  (Or.  21);  but  he 
supplies  us  with  nothing  of  the  nature  of  definite  literary  criticism. 
‘To  Themistius . . . the  great  writers  of  old  are  persons  worthy  of 
infinite  respect,  to  be  quoted  freely,  but  to  be  quoted... for  the 
substance  only’7.  In  another  of  his  discourses  (Or.  23)  he 
complains  of  the  length  of  time  spent  by  teachers  on  the  exposition 
of  a  single  author,  ‘  wasting  as  much  time  on  one  poor  book  as 
the  Greeks  spent  in  the  siege  of  Troy’.  He  holds  himself  aloof 
from  the  Sophists  of  the  day :  ‘  the  Sophists  might  dwell  con¬ 
tentedly  in  the  unrealities  of  dreamland,  but  eternal  verities  alone 
engaged  the  attention  of  his  class  ’ 8. 

1  ed.  Spengel,  2  vols.  (1866) ;  also  Anal.  Pr.  i,  ed.  Wallies  (1884). 

2  Steinschneider,  Hebr.  Uebersetzungen ,  §  89. 

3  Or.  xxiii  p.  351  (Grote’s  Ar.  i  81). 

4  Christ,  §  6013;  Croiset,  v  871-6;  ed.  Dindorf,  1832.  5  Or.  iv  p.  71. 

6  Or.  xxiii  p.  350.  7  Saintsbury,  i  125.  -  8  Capes,  p.  90. 


XX.] 


THEMISTIUS.  LIBANIUS. 


347 


Another  leading  teacher  of  the  day  was  Libanius  (314 — c.  393). 
He  was  born  at  Antioch.  At  the  age  of  fifteen  he  . 

showed  his  first  eagerness  for  literary  learning,  sold 
all  his  favourite  pigeons,  and  turned  with  enthusiasm  to  the 
ancient  Classics.  The  authors  then  most  read  were  Homer  and 
Hesiod,  Herodotus  and  Thucydides,  Lysias  and  Demosthenes ; 
but  others,  such  as  the  dramatists,  and  Pindar  and  Aristophanes, 
Plato  and  Aristotle,  were  not  neglected,  as  is  proved  by  quotations 
in  Libanius  and  his  contemporaries.  At  the  age  of  twenty  he 
read  the  Acharnians  during  a  terrific  storm  of  thunder  and 
lightning,  which  almost  blinded  him  and  made  him  deaf,  and 
even  left  him  liable  to  headaches  for  the  rest  of  his  life1.  At 
the  age  of  twenty-two,  though  his  kinsmen  wished  to  keep  him 
at  home,  and  his  friends  offered  him  rich  heiresses  in  marriage, 
he  insisted  on  completing  his  education  at  Athens :  ‘  he  would 
have  declined  the  hand  even  of  a  goddess,  if  he  could  only  see 
the  smoke  of  Athens’2.  At  Athens  he  at  once  became  the  victim 
of  a  party  of  students  who  insisted  on  his  attending  the  lectures 
of  their  favourite  professor  alone,  whom  he  soon  deserted  for 
the  private  study  of  the  ancient  Attic  authors3.  He  was  a  student 
for  about  four  years,  during  which  he  visited  Corinth,  Argos 
(where  he  was  initiated  in  the  local  mysteries)  and  Sparta  (where 
he  attended  the  primitive  ceremony  of  scourging  at  the  altar 
of  Artemis  Orthia).  But  his  time  at  Athens  passed  swiftly 
by :  ‘he  saw  it  only  as  in  a  dream,  and  then  went  on  his  way  ’ 4. 
Soon  afterwards,  however,  he  became  a  public  teacher  at  Athens, 
Constantinople,  Nicaea  and  Nicomedeia,  where  he  spent  five 
years  (344 — 349),  which  long  remained  in  his  memory  as  the 
very  ‘  flower  ’  and  ‘  spring-time  of  his  life  ’ 5.  It  was  there  also 
that  he  was  visited  by  a  friend  who  brought  with  him  the  welcome 
gift  of  a  whole  waggon-load  of  books6.  From  Nicomedeia  he 
returned  to  Constantinople  and  Athens,  and  finally,  at  the  age 
of  forty,  after  sixteen  years’  absence,  reached  his  old  home  at 
Antioch,  where  he  remained  as  a  public  teacher  for  the  rest 
of  his  life.  Among  the  Greek  rhetoricians  of  the  Roman  age 


1  i  9  f ;  Ep.  639. 
3  i  13  {id.  99  f). 

8  i  38- 


2  i  11  (Capes,  p.  66). 
4  Capes,  p.  67. 

6  i  39* 


34» 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


he  mentions  Favorinus,  Adrianus  and  Longinus1,  and  he  takes 
special  pains  to  obtain  a  bust  of  Aristides2.  Like  Themistius 
at  Constantinople,  he  was  a  devoted  adherent  of  the  pagan  cause 
at  Antioch,  but  his  most  famous  pupil  was  Chrysostom.  We  are 
told  that,  on  his  death-bed,  he  would  have  named  Chrysostom 
as  his  successor,  ‘if  he  had  not  been  carried  off  by  the  Christians’3. 
The  genuineness  of  the  correspondence  between  Libanius  and 
Basil  is  doubtful,  and  there  is  no  certain  proof  that  the  Christian 
bishop  ever  became  the  pupil  of  the  pagan  rhetorician. 

Libanius  was  a  prolific  writer.  Among  his  purely  scholastic 
works4  are  his  Declamations  (p^Xirai),  and  his  Rhetorical  Exercises 
(7rpoyu/xvao-/jtaT(jov  Trapay-yeX/xara),  the  latter  including  speeches 
composed  in  the  characters  of  Achilles  and  Medea,  and  a  some¬ 
what  dull  and  formal  comparison  between  Demosthenes  and 
Aeschines.  He  is  also  the  author  of  certain  critical  works  on 
Demosthenes,  including  a  Life  of  that  orator  and  Arguments 
to  his  speeches.  These  are  preserved  in  the  mss,  and  printed 
in  most  of  the  editions,  of  Demosthenes ;  he  rightly  declines  to 
accept  the  Speech  on  Halonnesus  as  the  work  of  Demosthenes, 
and  is  inclined  to  ascribe  to  Hypereides  the  Speech  on  the  treaty 
with  Alexander.  Among  his  rhetorical  works  are  an  Apology 
for  Socrates  and  a  Speech  against  Aeschines,  both  in  the  artificial 
manner  of  Aristides.  When  he  bitterly  reproaches  the  gods  in 
his  Monodies  on  the  destruction  of  Nicomedeia  and  on  th£  death 
of  Julian,  his  composition  is  in  strict  accord  with  the  precepts 
of  the  rhetorician  Menander5.  Many  of  his  other  speeches  are 
much  more  interesting  owing  to  the  light  which  they  throw  on 
the  academic  life  and  on  the  general  culture  of  the  time.  We 
learn  that  he  had  assistants  to  copy  all  his  speeches,  and  a  slave 
in  charge  of  the  complete  collection6.  In  one  of  his  discourses 
he  describes  two  of  the  pictures  (scenes  of  country  life)  that 
adorned  the  Senate-House  of  Antioch7;  in  another,  he  defends 
the  pantomime  of  his  day  against  the  attacks  of  Aristides8.  As 
a  widely  popular  teacher,  he  is  proud  of  the  number  of  his  pupils; 


1  EPP-  i3*3>  546,  99s- 


2  Ep.  1551. 

4  ed.  Reiske,  4  vols.  (1784-97). 
6  Ep.  656. 


3  Sozom.  viii  2. 

5  iii  435  Sp. 

7  iv  1048  and  1057. 


H  345- 


XX.] 


LIBANIUS. 


349 


he  is  ‘  too  modest  to  aver  that  he  has  filled  the  three  continents 
and  all  islands,  as  far  as  the  pillars  of  Hercules,  with  rhetoricians  ’, 
but  he  avows  that  he  has  ‘  spiritual  children  ’  in  Thrace  and 
Bithynia,  in  Ionia  and  Caria,  in  Galatia  and  Armenia,  in  Cilicia 
and  Syria  \  He  represents  a  student  complaining  to  himself : 
‘what  shall  I  gain  from  all  this  ceaseless  work,  from  reading 
through  so  many  poets,  so  many  rhetoricians,  and  writers  of 
every  style  of  composition?’1 2  He  complains  of  the  inattentive¬ 
ness  of  his  class  :  ‘  some  of  them  stand  like  statues,  with  their 
arms  folded  ;  others  vacantly  count  the  numbers  of  those  who 
come  in  late,  or  stare  at  the  trees  outside . . . ;  they  forget  all 
about  Demosthenes,  the  latest  comments  as  completely  as  the 
first  ’ 3.  He  exhorts  the  idlers  to  ‘  pay  less  attention  to  the  races 
and  more  to  their  books  ’ 4.  His  life  and  times  are  also  reflected 
in  his  Letters ,  of  which  more  than  1600  have  survived5.  Here 
we  incidentally  learn  that  he  was  ignorant  of  Latin6;  he  reproaches 
a  Roman  friend  for  not  writing  to  him  in  Greek,  although  his 
correspondent  had  thoroughly  studied  Homer  and  Demosthenes 7 ; 
and  he  tells  Demetrius8  that,  having  been  much  bored  by  the 
recitations  of  his  pupils,  he  had,  instead  of  lecturing  in  person, 
read  them  parts  of  the  ‘  artificial  epistolary  discourse  ’  of  his 
correspondent.  He  is  familiar  with  Attic  comedy9,  and  no 
writer  of  that  age  is  more  thoroughly  imbued  with  the  language 
of  Demosthenes  and  the  other  Attic  orators.  Four  centuries 
later  he  was  regarded  by  Photius  as,  on  the  whole,  maintaining 
a  true  standard  of  Attic  style10.  In  the  most  recent  criticism 
of  Demosthenes,  his  reminiscences  of  the  orator’s  language  supply 
part  of  the  materials  for  determining  the  original  text ;  and  a 
permanent  value  attaches  to  his  Arguments  to  the  orator’s 

1  iii  444  (Capes,  p.  79  f). 

2  iii  438  (ib.  p.  81  f). 

3  i  200-2  (Bernhardy,  Gr.  Liti.  i  66  $4 ;  Sievers,  p.  29;  Capes,  p.  iii  f). 

4  Or.  xxxiii  (ii  294!);  Saintsbury,  i  123. 

5  ed.  J.  C.  Wolf  (1738). 

6  Epp.  923,  1241.  7  Ep.  956. 

8  Ep.  128  (Saintsbury,  l.ct). 

9  Forster,  Rhein.  Mus.  32,  86  f. 

10  Cod.  90,  Kavu)v...Kal  orad/AT]  Xdyov’ATTiKov.  He  is  often  called  Arjfioodevrjs 

6  fJUKpds. 


350 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Ulpian 


Julian 


speeches1.  Probably  his  only  contact  with  modern  literature 
is  to  be  found  in  the  fact  that  his  sixth  Declamation 2  has  been 
imitated  in  the  character  of  Morose  in  Ben  Jonson’s  Silent 
Woman 3. 

Some  of  the  extant  scholia  on  Demosthenes  bear  the  name 
of  Ulpian.  They  are  of  little  value 4,  and  probably 
belong  in  part  alone  to  this  eminent  Sophist,  the 
author  of  a  number  of  lost  rhetorical  treatises  and  declamations, 
who  taught  rhetoric  at  Emesa  and  Antioch,  under  Constantine, 
counting  among  his  pupils  the  Christian  Proaeresius,  and  possibly 
the  pagan  Libanius5. 

Three  of  the  discourses  of  Libanius,  not  to  mention  many 
incidental  remarks  in  the  rest  of  his  writings,  are 
on  the  life  and  character  of  the  emperor  Julian, 
with  whom  he  had  much  in  common.  Blinded  by  the  beauty 
and  the  power  of  the  ancient  Classics,  both  alike  ‘  loved  to  dwell 
in  a  world  of  gods,  goddesses,  and  heroes  ’ 6 7.  When  Libanius 
heard  of  Julian’s  death,  we  are  assured  that  nothing  but  the 
principles  of  Plato,  and  the  duty  of  writing  an  encomium  on 
the  emperor,  prevented  the  rhetorician  from  falling  on  his  sword 1 . 
Julian,  the  son  of  the  half-brother  of  Constantine,  had  owed  his 
Greek  training  to  a  Hellenized  Scythian,  Mardonius,  an  admirer 
of  Plato,  Aristotle,  Theophrastus,  and  (above  all)  of  Homer. 
When  the  lad  was  longing  for  races  and  dances  and' other  delights, 
his  tutor  gravely  referred  him  to  Homer’s  admirable  descriptions 
of  the  races  in  memory  of  Patroclus,  to  the  dances  of  the  Phae- 
acians,  the  lays  of  Phemius  and  Demodocus,  the  palm-tree  of 


1  Cp.  Index  to  present  writer’s  First  Phil,  and  Olynthiacs  of  Demosthenes. 
— On  Libanius  in  general,  cp.  Sievers,  Das  Leben  des  Libanius  (1868);  Jule- 
ville,  Sur  la  Vie  et  la  Correspondance  de  Libanius ;  Christ,  §  599s;  Croiset,  v 
876-83;  Egger,  502-9;  Saintsbury,  i  121-4. 

2  SvgkoXos  777/xas  XdXov  7 vvaira  ecu nbv  irpocrayylWei  (separately  edited  by 
F.  Morell,  Paris,  1593-7). 

3  IVorhs,  iii  (1875)  341  note;  Hallam’s  Lit.  iii  97“*. 

4  Boeckh,  Staatshaushaltung ,  ed.  Frankel,  p.535  ‘der  unwissende  Ulpian’, 
cp.  399,  412,  549,  612,  641 ;  better  appreciated  on  p.  624. 

5  Muller  and  Donaldson,  Gk  Lit.  iii  290  f. 

6  J.  R.  Mozley  in  Diet.  Chr.  Biogr.  iii  7 10  b. 

7  i  91  f,  521. 


XX.] 


ULPIAN.  JULIAN. 


351 


Delos,  the  isle  of  Calypso,  the  cave  of  Circe  and  the  garden 
of  Alcinoiis1.  After  spending  six  years  in  the  seclusion  of  Cappa¬ 
docia,  he  attended  lectures  at  Constantinople  and  Nicomedeia. 
At  the  latter  place,  at  the  age  of  fourteen,  he  was  not  allowed 
to  hear  Libanius,  but  he  privately  obtained  reports  of  his  lectures2. 
He  spent  a  short  time  as  a  student  at  Athens  (355),  counting 
among  his  companions  the  future  bishops  Basil  and  Gregory 
of  Nazianzus.  Writing  afterwards  to  two  of  his  fellow-students, 
he  urged  them  not  to  despise  light  literature  or  to  neglect  rhetoric 
and  poetry,  but  to  pay  more  attention  to  mathematics,  and  to 
Plato  and  Aristotle  (. Ep .  55).  His  own  studies,  however,  were 
soon  interrupted  by  affairs  of  state.  Summoned  by  his  cousin 
Constantius  to  take  the  command  in  Gaul,  he  left  Athens  with 
regret,  stretching  out  his  hands  to  the  Acropolis  and  imploring 
Athena,  with  tears  in  his  eyes,  to  grant  him  the  boon  of  death 3 ; 
and,  reluctantly  assuming  the  purple  robe  of  a  Caesar  at  Milan, 
he  expressed  his  foreboding  of  his  future  fate  by  murmuring  to 
himself  the  ill-omened  line  of  Homer :  e\\a/3e  7 rop<f)vpeo<;  Oavaro ? 
Kai  ixoipa  Kparair)  (II.  v  83) 4.  When  the  news  of  his  victories 
in  Gaul  arrived  at  Constantinople,  the  wits  of  the  court  derided 
him  as  a  ‘  dabbler  in  Greek  ’ 5 ;  but  the  Gallic  soldiers  soon  hailed 
him  as  emperor  at  Paris,  while  he  mused  on  the  Odyssey6,  and 
prayed  Zeus  ‘  to  send  him  a  token  \  Constantius  died  on  his 
march  against  him,  and  Julian  ascended  the  throne.  The  pagan 
and  the  Neo-Platonist,  the  believer  in  magic  and  the  worshipper 
of  the  Sun-god,  who  had  been  a  heathen  at  heart  for  the  last 
ten  years,  now  flung  off  the  mask  and  appeared  in  his  true  colours. 
Thenceforth  his  great  aim  was  the  preservation  of  ‘  Hellenism  ’, 
or  Hellenic  civilisation,  of  which  the  ancient  religion  was  an 
expressive  symbol 7.  He  proclaimed  toleration  for  all  religions ; 
wrote  admonitory  letters  to  pagan  priests  forbidding  them  to  read 
Archilochus  or  Hipponax,  or  the  old  Attic  comedy,  or  amatory 
novels,  or  infidel  writings,  such  as  those  of  Epicurus,  ‘most  of 

1  Misopogon ,  351  D.  2  Libanius,  i  527. 

3  Ep.  p.  275  A.  4  Amm.  Marc,  xv  8,  17. 

6  ib.  xvii  11,  1,  litterionem  Graecum. 

6  iii  173 ;  Ep.  p.  284  c. 

7  Whittaker,  Neo-Platonists ,  p.  144. 


352 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


which  the  gods 5  (he  is  glad  to  say)  ‘  have  permitted  to  perish  ’  \ 
He  also  published  a  decree  forbidding  Christian  teachers,  who 
did  not  believe  in  the  gods  of  Homer  and  Hesiod,  Herodotus 
and  Thucydides,  Lysias,  Isocrates  and  Demosthenes,  to  give 
any  instruction  in  pagan  literature1 2.  It  was  probably  owing  to 
this  edict  that  Apollinaris,  formerly  a  grammarian  at  Alexandria 
and  now  a  priest  of  the  church  at  Laodicea,  prepared  a  series 
of  Christian  poems,  while  his  son,  of  the  same  name,  composed 
in  the  metre  of  Homer  twenty-four  books  on  biblical  history  down 
to  the  time  of  Saul,  imitated  Pindar,  Euripides  and  Menander  in 
sacred  verse,  and  turned  the  Psalms  into  Greek  hexameters3. 
Julian  attempted  a  religious  revival  at  Antioch,  where  he  became 
exceedingly  unpopular,  avenging  himself  by  writing,  under  the 
title  of  Misopogon ,  a  severe  satire  on  that  city.  From  Antioch 
he  started  on  a  punitive  expedition  against  the  Persians;  at  an 
early  stage  of  his  march,  he  wrote  to  Libanius,  whom  he  had 
lately  described  as  that  ‘  citizen  of  Antioch,  that  excellent  artificer 
of  speeches,  who  is  dear  to  Hermes  and  to  me  ’ 4,  stating  that 
at  Beroea  all  good  omens  were  sent  by  Zeus,  to  whom  he  had 
royally  sacrificed  a  white  bull 5 ;  but  the  expedition  ended  in  the 
death  of  Julian,  who  was  fatally  wounded  in  a  skirmish  near 
the  Persian  capital  of  Ctesiphon  on  the  Tigris.  His  brief  reign 
was  not  forgotten  :  124  years  afterwards,  the  votaries  of  the 

ancient  gods  still  reckoned  their  years  trom  his  death6. 

His  writings  teem  with  proofs  of  his  familiarity  with  the  old 
Greek  Classics.  From  a  child  he  had  been  passionately  fond 
of  possessing  books 7.  When  he  visits  Ilium  as  emperor,  he  finds 
a  bishop  of  pagan  sympathies  protecting  from  profanation  the 
temple  of  Athena,  the  shrine  of  Hector  and  the  tomb  of  Achilles 8. 
The  mere  enumeration  of  the  passages  which  he  quotes  from 
Homer  would  fill  three  pages  of  print9.  He  also  cites  Hesiod 

1  p.  386  c;  T.  R.  Glover,  p.  64. 

2  Ep.  42,  p.  423  A;  Greg.  Naz.  Or.  iii  51. 

3  The  last  alone  has  survived,  Migne  xxxiii  1313. 

4  Misopogon ,  354  c.  5  Ep.  27,  p.  399  D. 

6  Mar.  vit.  Procli,  36. 

7  Ep.  9 ;  Misopogon,  p.  347  a. 

9  Brambs,  Studien  i  (1897),  pp.  41-3. 


8  Ep.  78. 


XX.] 


QUINTUS  SMYRNAEUS. 


353 


and  Pindar,  Euripides  and  Aristophanes,  Theocritus  and  Babrius. 
He  was  fond  of  reading  Bacchylides1.  His  numerous  quotations 
from  Euripides  are  mainly  confined  to  the  Bacchae ,  Phoenissae 
and  Orestes 2.  He  never  cites  Aeschylus  ;  he  lived  in  a  time 
when  Sophocles  was  evidently  read  no  longer ;  for  he  actually 
quotes  a  proverbial  line  from  Oed.  Tyr.  614  without  knowing 
its  source.  He  had  been  taught  by  Mardonius  to  emulate  Plato 
and  Socrates,  Aristotle  and  Theophrastus3;  he  often  mentions 
Aristotle,  but  quotes  more  frequently  from  Plato ;  he  urges  his 
former  fellow-students  to  study  both  ( Ep .  55).  His  favourite 
speeches  in  Demosthenes  are  the  First  and  Second  Olynthiacs , 
and  the  De  Corona ,  but  he  also  knows  the  Leptines  and  the 
De  Chersoneso.  In  Isocrates,  he  quotes  oftenest  from  the  Eva- 
goras  and  the  Panegyricus ,  and  also  from  the  ad  Demonicum  and 
ad  Nicoclem .  By  far  the  largest  amount  of  indebtedness  to 
Isocrates  and  Demosthenes  is  (not  unnaturally)  found  in  his 
earliest  extant  oration,  the  encomium  on  Constantius,  composed 
at  the  age  of  twenty-four4.  During  his  stay  in  Cappadocia,  he 
borrowed  ‘  many  philosophical  and  rhetorical  works  ’  from  George, 
afterwards  bishop  of  Alexandria,  who  was  slain  by  the  mob  of 
that  city,  leaving  behind  him  a  valuable  library,  which  Julian 
caused  to  be  sent  to  Antioch  for  his  own  use5.  He  founded 
a  public  library  in  Constantinople  and  placed  his  own  collection 
in  it6.  This  library  was  destroyed  by  fire  128  years  after  his 
death 7. 

It  was  probably  in,  or  shortly  after,  the  time  of  Julian,  that 
Quintus  of  Smyrna  composed  the  epic  poem  which 
serves  to  fill  the  gap  between  the  story  of  the  Iliad  smyrnaeus 
and  that  of  the  Odyssey.  The  versification  of  his 
hexameters  suggests  an  earlier  date  than  that  of  Nonnus,  who 
flourished  c.  410.  Quintus  is  an  imitator  of  Homer,  Hesiod  and 

1  Amm.  Marc.  xxv.  4,  3.  2  Brambs,  i  54. 

3  Misopogon ,  353  B.  4  Brambs,  Studien  ii  (1899). 

5  Epp.  9,  36.  6  Zosimus,  iii  11,  5. 

7  On  Julian,  cp.  J.  Wordsworth  in  Diet.  Chr.  Biogr.  and  the  literature  there 
quoted,  including  G.  H.  Kendall’s  Hulsean  Essay  (1879);  ak°  A.  Gardner 
(1895),  and  T.  R.  Glover’s  Fourth  Century ,  pp.  47 — 7 6;  with  Christ,  §6o33; 
and  Croiset,  v  893 — 902. 


S. 


23 


354 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Apollonius  Rhodius.  He  is  true  to  the  Homeric  tone,  and  he 
adopts  Homer’s  vocabulary  without  borrowing  his  conventional 
phrases.  Just  as  Hesiod,  early  in  the  Theogony ,  tells  of  the 
Muses  ‘  who  on  a  day  taught  him  a  beautiful  song,  while  he  was 
feeding  his  lambs  under  divine  Helicon’,  so  Quintus  avers  that 
the  Muses  had  inspired  him  when,  as  a  boy,  he  was  ‘tending 
his  fine  flocks  on  a  lowly  hill  in  the  plain  of  Smyrna,  thrice 
as  far  from  the  Hermus,  as  a  shout  would  carry’  (xii  308 — 313). 
He  is  familiar  with  the  legendary  scenes  near  Smyrna,  with  Niobe 
turned  to  stone  on  the  cliff  of  Sipylus  (i  294 — 306),  with  the 
Phrygian  haunt  of  Endymion  (x  126 — 137),  and  with  the  storied 
islands  and  headlands  and  tombs  of  the  Troad  (vii  400 — 416). 
He  is  probably  independent  of  the  Cyclic  poets,  and  the  attempt 
to  prove  his  indebtedness  to  Virgil  has  not  succeeded1.  Modern 
critics  have  praised  the  way  in  which  he  relates  the  stories  of 
Penthesilea  and  Deidameia ;  and  the  tale  of  Oenone,  wrhich 
Quintus  ‘somewhat  lazily  handled  of  old’,  has  been  retold  in 
a  fresh  form  by  Tennyson.  His  work,  as  a  whole,  is  character¬ 
istic  of  an  age  which  ‘could  admire  but  not  create’.  Even  the 
tale  of  Oenone  is  believed  to  be  of  Alexandrian  origin2;  and 
throughout  the  work  there  are  many  proofs  of  special  indebted¬ 
ness  to  the  Alexandrian  poet,  Apollonius  Rhodius3. 

The  grammarian  Theodosius  of  Alexandria  may  possibly  be 
Th  .  identified  with  the  ‘wonderful  grammarian  Theo¬ 
dosius  ’,  to  whom  Synesius  sends  his  greetings  near 
the  close  of  his  fourth  Letter.  If  so,  he  may  be  placed  about 
the  end  of  the  fourth  century.  His  name  is  wrongly  assigned 
to  a  collection  of  commentaries 4 5  on  the  Grammar  of  Dionysius 
Thrax,  consisting  of  two  parts,  the  first  including  extracts  from 
the  Greek  version  of  Priscian  by  the  Byzantine  monk  Planudes 
(end  of  cent,  xiii),  with  scholia  by  Melampus  and  Stephanus,  and 
the  second  being  the  work  of  Theodorus  Prodromus  (cent.  xii)6. 

1  Refuted  by  Koechly  in  his  ed.,  p.  xiiif. 

2  Rohde’s  Gr.  Roman,  p.  no  (quoted  by  Glover). 

3  Kemptzow,  1891. — On  Quintus  in  general,  cp.  T.  R.  Glover’s  Fourth 
Century,  77 — 101;  Christ,  §  584s;  Croiset,  v  903-5. 

4  Theodosii  Alex .  grammatical  ed.  Gottling  (1822). 

5  Uhlig,  Dion.  Thrax ,  p.  xxxvii;  Hilgard  in  Gram.  Gr.  iv  p.  cxxvii  f. 


XX.]  THEODOSIUS.  AMMONIUS.  HELLADIUS. 


355 


Theodosius  is  probably  the  author  of  the  epitome  of  Herodian’s 
work  on  accentuation  (/cavoves  rrjs  KaOo\iKr}<;  TrpocrwSLas)  attributed 
to  Arcadius,  a  celebrated  grammarian  of  Antioch  (before  600  a.d.)1. 
He  is  undoubtedly  the  author  of  certain  ‘  introductory  rules  on  the 
inflexions  of  nouns  and  verbs  ’ 2.  This  work  was  often  appended 
to  that  of  Dionysius  Thrax  and  was  formerly  ascribed  to  the 
latter.  But  there  is  a  marked  difference  between  them.  Thus, 
while  Dionysius  Thrax  confines  himself  to  quoting  only  those 
tenses  of  rv7rro>  which  were  in  actual  use,  Theodosius  sets  forth 
all  the  imaginary  aorists  and  futures  of  that  verb,  regardless  of 
ancient  usage.  He  is  the  earliest  grammarian  who  does  so ;  and 
his  work  transmitted  this  misleading  teaching  to  later  ages,  in 
which  it  was  expounded  by  Joannes  Charaxand  Georgius  Choero- 
boscus  (cent,  vi),  through  whom  it  descended  to  the  grammars 
of  the  Renaissance,  and  even  to  those  of  modern  Europe.  These 
monstrous  and  portentous  forms  have  shown  a  wonderful  vitality, 
notwithstanding  the  fact  that  they  have  been  virtually  slain  by 
Cobet,  who  vigorously  denounces  them  as  ‘  monstra  et  portenta 
formarum, . . .  quae  in  magistellorum  cerebris  nata  sunt,  in  Grae¬ 
corum  libris  nusquam  leguntur’3. 

Near  the  close  of  the  century  (391),  among  those  of  the 
pagan  party  who  resisted  the  destruction  of  the 
Serapeum  at  Alexandria,  were  the  grammarians  an^^ieiiadius 
Ammonius  and  Helladius4.  The  work  on  synonyms 
bearing  the  name  of  the  former  is  only  a  Byzantine  edition  of 
the  work  of  Herennius  Philon5,  while  the  lexicon  of  Helladius 
was  known  to  Photius  (cod.  145)  and  was  one  of  the  authorities 
followed  by  Suidas.  Ammonius  and  Helladius  fled  from  Alex¬ 
andria  to  Constantinople,  where  they  became  the  instructors  of 
the  ecclesiastical  historian,  Socrates6. 

1  ed.  M.  Schmidt,  i860. 

2  eicrayioyiKol  Kavbves  irepi  KXiaews  ovo/xaTUv  kcli  pripaTiov,  Bekker  Anecd.  Gr. 
974 — 1061 ;  ed.  Hilgard  with  the  Scholia  of  Choeroboscus  in  Gi'am.  Gr., 
iv  1889-94. 

3  Variae  Lectiones ,  p.  330.  On  Theodosius  in  general,  cp.  Christ,  §  628s, 
and  Cohn  in  Pauly- Wissowa.  Cp.  supra ,  p.  138. 

4  Rufinus,  Hist.  Eccl.  ii  22 ;  Socr.  v  16-17. 

5  Cohn  in  Pauly- Wissowa,  ii  1866. 

6  Photius,  cod.  28. 


CHAPTER  XXI. 


GREEK  SCHOLARSHIP  FROM  400  TO  530  A.D. 


The  fifth 
century, 
and  after 


In  this  chapter,  which  closes  our  survey  of  the  Roman  age, 
the  time  to  be  traversed  begins  in  the  brief  and 
ineffective  reign  of  Arcadius,  and  ends  in  the  first 
few  years  of  the  long  and  fruitful  reign  of  Justinian. 
Under  the  successor  of  Arcadius,  the  skilled  calligrapher  Theo¬ 
dosius  II,  a  University  was  founded  at  Constantinople,  as  a 
counterpoise  to  the  School  of  Athens ;  and  the  literary  interests 
of  the  day  are  further  illustrated  by  the  fact  that  his  consort, 
Eudocia,  a  native  of  Athens,  won  the  applause  of  Antioch  for 
a  Greek  speech  closing  with  the  Homeric  line  :  v/xer 6/3775  (for 
TavTrjs  tol )  yeverjs  re  kcu  at/xaro?  cv^o/xat  emu  \  Early  in  the 
fifth  century  we  find  evidence  of  a  revival  of  interest  in  Greek 
poetry  in  northern  Egypt.  It  is  the  age  of  Nonnus,  who  was 
born  at  Panopolis  in  the  Thebaid,  and  probably 
lived  at  Alexandria.  His  vast  and  diffuse  epic  in 
forty-four  books  on  the  adventures  of  Dionysus  is 
an  immense  repertory  of  mythological  lore.  After  his  conversion 
to  Christianity  he  wrote  a  free  and  flowing  paraphrase  of  the 
Gospel  according  to  St  John.  The  versification  of  both  is  marked 
by  the  predominance  of  dactyls,  the  strict  avoidance  of  consecu¬ 
tive  spondees,  an  almost  invariable  preference  for  the  trochaic 
caesura  in  the  third  foot,  and  the  constant  use  of  the  acute 
accent  on  one  of  the  last  two  syllables, — generally  the  last  but 
one.  These  innovations,  which  are  better  suited  to  the  idyll 
than  to  the  epic,  are  unknown  to  Quintus  Smyrnaeus  ;  and  the 
last  of  them  forms  a  prelude  to  the  accentual  versification  of 


Poets. 

Nonnus 


1  //.  vi  21 1  xx  241;  Evagrius,  i  20;  Bury’s  Later  Roman  Empire ,  i  131. 


CHAP.  kXI.]  NONNUS  AND  HIS  SCHOOL. 


357 


Historians 


the  Byzantine  age1.  The  school  of  Nonnus  includes  the  Egyptian 
grammarian  and  poet,  Tryphiodorus,  the  author  of  an  elegant 
but  uninteresting  poem  on  the  Fall  of  Troy ;  Col- 
luthus,  of  Lycopolis  in  the  Thebaid  (fl.  491 — 518),  coUAtJms°rUS 
the  writer  of  a  short  epic  on  Helen ;  and  (the  only  ^iste0udorus 
true  poet  of  the  three)  Musaeus,  whose  Hero  and 
Leander,  with  its  echoes  of  the  Alexandrian  age  of  Callimachus, 
is  the  most  charming  product  of  Greek  literature  at  the  close 
of  the  Roman  age 2 3.  During  the  transition  from  the  fifth  to  the 
sixth  centuries  Christodorus  of  Coptus  distinguished  himself  by 
his  rhetorically  poetical  description  of  the  seventy-three  statues 
of  the  poets,  philosophers,  historians  and  heroes  of  Greece,  which 
adorned  the  gymnasium  of  Zeuxippus  at  Constantinople  until  its 
destruction  by  fire  in  532  s. 

In  the  fifth  century  general  history  is  best  represented  by 
Zosimus,  an  imitator  of  Polybius,  and  ecclesiastical 
history  by  Socrates,  who  continues  Eusebius  from 
306  to  439,  and  Sozomen  and  Theodoret,  who  cover  part  of  the 
same  period.  All  four  of  these  historians  belong  to  the  middle 
of  the  fifth  century. 

In  the  same  century  the  philosophers  devoted  their  attention 
mainly  to  the  Timaeus  of  Plato,  and  to  certain 
pseudo-orphic  poems  and  a  collection  of  oracles, 
which  had  already  been  expounded  by  Porphyry.  The  light 
of  Neo-Platonism  grows  dim  after  the  death  of  Proclus  (485), 
and  it  slowly  disappears  in  the  course  of  the  sixth  century.  The 
Syrian  school  of  Iamblichus  ( c .  280 — c.  330),  which  had  been 
so  brilliant  in  the  first  half  of  the  fourth  century,  fell  into  obscurity 
after  the  death  of  Julian.  Early  in  the  fifth  century  a  new  centre 
of  Neo-Platonism  was  formed  at  Alexandria,  and  in  that  school 
the  most  interesting  personality  was  that  of  Hypatia.  Her  father 
was  the  philosopher  and  mathematician,  Theon, 
the  commentator  on  Aratus,  Euclid  and  Ptolemy, 
the  compiler  of  a  list  of  consuls  from  138  to  372,  and  the  last 
known  member  of  the  Alexandrian  Museum  (365).  She  studied 


Philosophers 


Hypatia 


1  Christ,  §  585s ;  Croiset,  v  994 — 1000;  cp.  Bury,  i  317 — 320. 

2  Christ,  §  586*;  Croiset,  v  1003. 

3  Anth.  Pal.  ii. 


358 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


the  Platonic  philosophy  at  Athens,  and  lectured  at  Alexandria 
on  mathematics,  as  well  as  on  Plato  and  Aristotle ;  in  her 
philosophic  teaching  she  followed  the  tradition  of  Plotinus1.  As 
recorded  in  the  ecclesiastical  history  of  the  time,  her  brilliant 
career  was  cut  short  by  the  fanaticism  of  the  Alexandrian  mob 
in  the  spring  of  4 1 5  2. 

The  most  distinguished  of  her  pupils  was  Synesius,  who 
in  his  Letters  shows  a  very  high  regard  for  his 

Synesius  J  0  0 

teacher,  even  after  he  had  become  bishop  of  Ptole- 
mais,  the  metropolitan  see  of  the  Cyrenaic  Pentapolis.  He  was 
born  at  Cyrene  ( c .  370),  being  descended  from  the  Dorian 
founders  of  his  native  city,  which,  as  he  proudly  recalls,  was 
also  the  birthplace  of  Carneades  and  Aristippus.  In  his  boyhood 
he  led  a  healthy  life  in  the  open  air,  thus  acquiring  that  love 
of  the  chase  which  never  left  him.  His  youthful  education  under 
Hypatia  at  Alexandria  included  mathematics  and  philosophy 
(c.  390-5).  He  describes  himself  as  united  to  one  of  his  friends, 
Hesychius,  by  the  sacred  bond  of  their  common  study  of  geo¬ 
metry3;  he  presents  to  another,  Paeonius  (an  important  personage 
at  Constantinople),  an  astrolabe  of  his  own  invention4;  and,  in 
one  of  his  Letters ,  he  tells  a  third  that  he  fancies  the  very  stars 
look  down  with  kindly  influence  on  himself,  as  the  only  man 
in  Libya  who  could  look  up  to  them  with  the  eyes  of  knowledge 5. 
His  father,  a  senator  of  Cyrene,  left  him  his  library;  Synesius 
himself  had  many  more  books  to  bequeath  than  he  had  thus 
inherited ;  and,  during  his  whole  life,  his  sympathies  were 
thoroughly  Greek.  From  about  400  to  402  (during  the  patri¬ 
archate  of  John  Chrysostom)  he  stayed  at  Constantinople  as  the 
special  envoy  of  Cyrene  at  the  court  of  Arcadius,  before  whom 
he  delivered  on  his  country’s  behalf  a  courageous6  plea  for  a 
remission  of  taxation.  The  speech  owes  much  to  reminiscences 
of  Dion  Chrysostom,  whose  style,  however,  is  more  simple  than 

1  W.  A.  Meyer,  quoted  by  Bury,  i  208. 

2  There  are  monographs  on  Hypatia  by  Hoche  (. Philologus ,  xv  435  f),  and 
W.  A.  Meyer  (1886). 

3  Ep.  92.  4  Migne,  lxvi  1577. 

5  Ep.  100,  p.  1470  D. 

6  1310  A,  tZv  iruTore  'l&Wrjvuv  dappaXeurepov. 


XXI.] 


SYNESIUS. 


359 


that  of  Synesius 1 2 ;  and,  besides  including  passages  from  the 
Gorgias  and  Republic ,  it  is  interspersed  with  some  sixteen  quota¬ 
tions  from  the  poets.  In  one  of  the  phrases  which  he  borrows 
from  Homer,  he  even  describes  the  emperors  as  having,  by  their 
robes  of  purple  and  gold  and  their  barbaric  gems,  brought  on 
themselves  ‘  that  Homeric  curse — the  coat  of  stone 5  2.  In  the 
same  discourse  he  oddly  speaks  of  the  stone  of  Tantalus  (instead 
of  the  sword  of  Damocles)  as  hanging  over  the  state,  suspended 
by  a  single  thread.  At  Constantinople  or  elsewhere,  he  had 
apparently  been  bored  by  people  who  gave  themselves  airs  on 
the  strength  of  having  seen  the  groves  of  Academe,  the  Lyceum 
of  Aristotle  and  the  porch  of  Zeno3.  He  accordingly  paid  a 
visit  to  Athens,  writing  to  his  brother  from  Anagyrus  to  tell  him 
that  he  had  been  to  Sphettus  and  Thria,  to  Cephisia  and  Phaleron, 
and  that  he  had  seen  the  Academy  and  the  Lycaeum,  and  all 
that  remained  of  the  ‘  Painted  Porch  ’,  which  a  Roman  proconsul 
had  robbed  of  the  masterpieces  of  Polygnotus.  The  splendour 
of  Athens  (he  adds)  only  survived  in  places  bearing  famous  names ; 
Hypatia  of  Alexandria  far  surpassed  the  ‘brace  of  Plutarchean 
Sophists  5  (either  Plutarchus  and  Syrianus,  or  a  son  and  son-in-law 
of  the  former),  who  attracted  their  pupils  to  their  lecture-rooms, 
not  by  the  fame  of  their  discourses  but  by  the  bribe  of  jars  of 
honey  from  Hymettus ;  for  Athens,  once  the  home  of  the  wise, 
derived  the  last  remnant  of  her  glory  from  her  bee-keepers 
alone 4. 

He  left  Constantinople  during  an  earthquake,  and  reached 
the  Cyrenaic  coast  during  a  terrific  storm.  After  his  return, 
he  spent  two  years  at  Alexandria  (402-4),  married  a  Christian 
wife  and  in  404  settled  down  at  his  old  home  as  a  country 
gentleman  delighting  in  his  horses  and  dogs,  dividing  his  time 
between  ‘books  and  the  chase55,  and  suppressing  local  bands 
of  brigands,  when  to  his  surprise  and  embarrassment  he  found 
himself  called  by  the  voice  of  the  people  to  be  bishop  of  Ptole- 
mais  (406).  After  seven  months  of  uncertainty,  he  allowed 

1  Theodorus  Metochita,  in  Dindorf’s  Dion ,  ii  367.  Cp.  Byz.  Zeitschr.  1900, 

85—151- 

2  II  iii  57.  3  Ep.  54. 

3  1307  D,  1388  c;  cp.  1484  A,  1488  c. 


4  Ep.  136. 


360 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


himself  to  be  consecrated  by  the  Alexandrian  patriarch,  Theo- 
philus,  early  in  407.  He  was  soon  very  active  in  the  discharge 
of  his  duties,  but  his  tenure  of  office  must  have  been  brief,  for 
we  find  no  trace  of  him  beyond  413.  It  therefore  seems  probable 
that  he  died  one  or  two  years  before  the  tragic  end  of  Hypatia. 
Seven  of  his  Letters  are  addressed  to  her ;  he  regards  her  as  ‘  his 
mother  and  sister,  and  his  preceptor  ’ ;  and,  when  he  has  lost  all 
his  three  sons  and  is  trembling  for  the  fate  of  Cyrene,  he  confides 
to  her  his  woes,  and  (quoting  Homer)  assures  her  that,  ‘if  men 
forget  the  dead  that  dwell  in  Hades,  yet  even  there’  he  will 
remember  Hypatia  \  His  Dion,  an  Apologia  pro  vita  sua ,  written 
c.  405,  is  a  treatise  on  education  and  moral  discipline,  composed 
for  the  benefit  of  a  son  who  was  yet  unborn,  and  suggested  by 
the  teaching  of  Dion  Chrysostom,  whose  later  writings  he  regards 
as  models  of  simple  and  natural  elegance.  He  tells  Hypatia 
how  he  had  come  to  write  it  (Dp.  153)-  Certain  philosophers 
had  accused  him  of  pretending  to  opinions  about  Homer,  and 
of  caring  for  beauty  and  rhythm  of  language.  He  accordingly 
holds  up  Dion  as  an  example  of  a  rhetorician  who  had  become 
a  philosopher  without  losing  the  charm  of  a  classic  style.  In. 
the  treatise  itself  he  insists  that  the  true  philosopher  must  be 
a  thorough  Greek;  must  be  initiated  into  the  mysteries  of  the 
Graces,  and  familiar  with  everything  that  is  important  in  literature ; 
all  this  he  will  know  as  a  scholar  (<£«AoAoyos)  and  will  judge  as 
a  philosopher1 2.  ‘These  rigid  critics,  who  profess  a  contempt 
for  rhetoric  and  poetry,  do  so  not  of  their  own  choice,  but  owing 
to  poverty  of  nature  ’3.  ‘  Beauty  of  language  is  not  an  idle  thing ; 

it  is  a  pure  pleasure,  which  looks  away  from  matter  to  real 
existence’4.  ‘A  man  may  be  well-equipped  in  speech,  and,  at 
the  same  time,  a  master  of  philosophy.’  Synesius  aims  at  being 
both,  notwithstanding  the  criticisms  of  philosophers  who  are 
illiterate,  and  of  grammarians  who  criticise  philosophical  works, 
syllable  by  syllable,  without  producing  anything  of  their  own5. 

1  Ep.  124;  also  10,  15,  16,  33,  80,  153;  cp.  Ep.  4,  1342  B  (to  his  brother 
at  Alexandria),  dairaaai  ttiv  ore^aa'/juujTOiTTjv  Kal  deocpiXearaTTjv  <piX6cro<f>ou ,  Kal 
t6v  evdai/xova  x°P^v  T^v  oaroXaiovTa  rrjs  decnrecrlas  avdrjs,  and  Epp.  132,  135  f. 

2  1125  A,  C.  3  II25  D. 

4  II29B.  5  1 152  A. 


XXI.] 


SYNESIUS. 


361 


He  also  answers  those  of  his  critics  who  had  reproached  him 
with  using  incorrect  and  faulty  texts ;  ‘  what  does  it  matter  ’  (he 
replies)  ‘  if  one  syllable  is  put  for  another  ? ’  ‘  The  very  necessity 

for  making  emendations  is  itself  an  excellent  training.’  ‘The 
whole  end  of  books  is  to  call  out  ability  into  active  exercise; 
to  make  us  think,  and  think  clearly  ’  \  In  conclusion  he  refers 
with  charming  candour  to  his  own  skill  in  improvising  the  sequel 
of  any  passage  which  he  happened  to  be  reading,  and  to  his  own 
imitations  of  ancient  tragedies  and  comedies,  possibly  dating  from 
his  Alexandrian  days ; — adding  that,  in  these  compositions,  the 
reader  would  have  taken  him  for  a  contemporary,  now  of  Cratinus 
and  Crates,  now  of  Diphilus  and  Philemon.  The  influence  of 
Porphyry  is  apparent  in  the  Dion ;  and  that  of  Plotinus  in  his 
treatise  On  Dreams  (which  he  regards  as  a  means  of  divine 
revelation).  In  this  hastily  written  work  he  incidentally  remarks 
that  thoughts  revealed  to  him  in  the  visions  of  the  night  had 
helped  him  not  merely  in  the  pursuits  of  the  chase,  but  even 
in  the  cultivation  of  his  style1 2. 

His  Letters ,  159  in  number,  ranging  in  time  from  c.  399  to 
413,  are  full  of  the  news  of  the  day,  full  too  of  grace  and  point 
and  literary  interest.  They  are  praised  by  Evagrius,  Photius  and 
Suidas 3.  We  here  find,  now  the  traveller,  now  the  man  of  action, 
absorbed  in  his  country’s  good ;  now  the  meditative  student,  and 
now  the  active  administrator.  Throughout  them  all,  the  writer’s 
literary  proclivities  are  most  strongly  marked.  He  tells  us  that 
he  has  been  asked  for  some  of  his  poems,  but  that  he  ‘has  not 
had  time  even  to  take  them  out  of  their  boxes’4.  In  the  same 
Letter  he  quotes  from  the  Odyssey  (ix  51)  and  from  Archilochus. 
In  a  few  lines  full  of  idyllic  charm,  written  to  his  brother  at  the 
seaside,  he  describes  the  birds  and  trees  and  flowers  that  surround 
him  at  Cyrene,  adding  that  the  cave  of  the  Nymphs  calls  for 
a  Theocritus  to  sing  its  praises 5.  In  a  violent  storm  between 
Alexandria  and  the  Cyrenaic  coast  he  recalls  the  Ajax  of 
Sophocles  and  the  tempests  in  the  Odyssey6.  He  assures  one 
of  his  friends,  half  in  fun,  that  the  rustics  south  of  Cyrene  regard 


1  1160  C-D;  1556  a;  cp.  Nicol,  p.  109;  Crawford,  p.  i6$f. 

2  c.  9.  3  Volkmann’s  Synesius,  p.  113. 

4  Ep.  129.  5  Ep.  1 14.  Ep.  4. 


362 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Odysseus  and  the  Cyclops  as  still  in  the  land  of  the  living,  and 
suppose  that  the  emperor,  whom  they  have  never  seen,  is  the 
same  as  a  certain  Agamemnon  who  once  sailed  to  Troy  \  To 
Synesius  himself,  Menelaus  is  the  type  of  the  true  philosopher 
who  can  extort  the  truth  even  from  the  evasive  Proteus 2. 
Throughout  the  whole  of  his  writings  his  references  to  Greek 
literature  are  very  numerous.  He  refers  most  frequently  to  Plato 
(c.  133  times),  Homer  (c.  84)  and  Plutarch  {c.  36);  less  often 
to  Aristotle  (20)  and  Herodotus  (16),  and  to  Hesiod,  Pindar, 
Euripides,  Aristophanes,  Xenophon  and  Plotinus  {c.  10  each) ; 
while  the  smallest  number  of  quotations  comes  from  Archilochus, 
Empedocles,  Aeschylus,  Sophocles,  Thucydides  and  Demosthenes3. 
A  far  greater  familiarity  with  Demosthenes  is  shown  by  his 
correspondent;  the  monk  and  scholar  Isidore  of  Pelusium 
( c .  370 — c.  450),  whose  reminiscences  of  Demosthenes,  scattered 
up  and  down  his  2000  Letters,  are  sometimes  of  value  for 
purposes  of  textual  criticism 4.  Once,  when  Dion  quotes  a 
passage,  which  is  really  to  be  found  in  II.  xxii  401,  Synesius 
actually  ventures  to  assert  that  Dion  must  have  invented  it5. 
His  writings  happily  illustrate  the  extent  and  the  character  of 
the  study  of  Greek  literature  which  prevailed  in  his  age6,  while 
they  also  embody  the  opinions  of  a  man  of  singular  versatility, 
a  student  as  well  as  a  sportsman,  a  man  of  genuine  cultivation 
but  not  entirely  free  from  pedantry,  one  who  stood  on  the  border¬ 
land  between  Neo-Platonism  and  Christianity,  and  filled  at  one 
time  the  position  of  a  pagan  orator  and  philosopher,  and  at 
another  that  of  an  active  patriot  and  a  Christian  bishop.  His 
Hymns  have  won  high  praise  from  Mrs  Browning,  who  translated 
two  of  them,  while  the  tenth  and  last  and  simplest  of  them  all 
has  found  its  way  into  Hymns,  A ncient  and  Modern 7.  Even 
in  an  abstruser  poem  of  portentous  length,  a  passage  where  he 
bids  all  the  sounds  of  inanimate  Nature  be  silent  while  he  sings 

1  Ep.  147.  2  1 128  D. 

3  Crawford,  pp.  522-79. 

4  Cp.  index  to  present  writer’s  ed.  of  First  Philippic  and  Olynthiacs. 

5  1 200  A. 

6  Cp.  Volkmann’s  Synesius,  p.  135. 

7  No.  185,  ‘Lord  Jesus,  think  on  me’  (trans.  by  A.  W.  Chatfield,  1876). 


XXI.] 


SYNESIUS.  PALLADAS. 


363 


the  Father  and  the  Son,  supplies  us  with  a  strain  of  not  ungraceful 
simplicity : — 

Let  heaven  and  earth  awed  silence  keep, 

Let  air  and  sea  be  still, 

Let  rushing  winds  and  waters  sleep, 

Hushed  be  the  river,  hushed  the  rill1. 

Touches  of  poetry  are  not  wanting  even  in  his  prose.  In 
contrasting  the  freedom  of  his  life  at  Cyrene  with  the  slavery 
endured  by  the  orators  in  the  law-courts  of  Alexandria,  he  says 
in  his  Dion : — ‘  I  sing  to  these  cypresses  ;  and  this  water  here 
runs,  rushing  along  its  course,  not  measured  off,  or  dealt  out  by 
the  water-clock...  And,  even  when  I  have  ceased,  the  stream 
flows  on,  and  will  flow  on,  by  night  and  by  day,  and  till  next  year, 
and  for  ever  ’ 2. 

In  contrast  with  the  Neo-Platonic  and  Christian  hymns  of 
Synesius  we  may  briefly  glance  at  the  150  epigrams 

&  ailaQaS 

of  one  of  the  latest  of  the  pagan  poets,  Palladas. 

We  there  see  him  sighing  over  the  gods  of  the  ancient  world, 
whose  days  are  gone  for  ever3;  studying  the  old  poets,  but 
finding  himself  so  poor  that  he  is  compelled  to  sell  his  Pindar 
and  his  Callimachus 4 ;  writing  witty  verses  on  the  scholastic  uses 
of  the  Iliad* ;  discovering  that,  in  the  Odyssey  as  well  as  the 
Iliad,  Homer  is  a  misogynist 6 ;  and  revealing  himself  as  in 
general  a  gloomy  pessimist,  whose  only  enthusiasm  is  for 
Hypatia : — 

Thee  when  I  view,  thyself  and  thy  discourse 
I  worship,  for  I  see  thy  virgin- home 
Is  in  the  stars,  thy  converse  is  in  heaven, 

Adorable  Hypatia,  Grace  of  speech, 

Unsullied  Star  of  true  philosophy7. 

1  iii  7 2 — 81. 

2  Dion ,  c.  11,  1149  a;  Crawford,  p.  195. — On  Synesius  in  general,  see 
Opera  in  Migne,  lxvi  1021  —  1 6 r 6 ;  Tillemont,  Memoires ,  xii;  Clausen  (1831); 
Druon’s  Etudes  (1859)  >  Volkmann  (1869) ;  Lapatz  (1870) ;  A.  Gardner  (1886) ; 
J.  C.  Nicol  (1887) ;  Halcomb  in  Diet.  Chr.  Biogr. ;  Nieri  in  Rivista  di Jilologia 
xxi  (1892)  220  f;  Seeck  in  Philologus  lii  (1893)  458-83  (where  the  chronology 
of  the  Letters  is  revised) ;  W.  S.  Crawford  (1901);  and  T.  R.  Glover’s  Fourth 
Century ,  pp.  320 — 356;  also  Christ,  §  654s,  Croiset,  v  1043-9;  and  c.  21  of 
Kingsley’s  Hypatia. 

3  Anth.  Pal.  ix  441.  4  ix  175.  6  ix  173-4. 

6  ix  166.  7  ix  400.  Cp.  T.  R.  Glover,  pp.  303-19. 


364 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Cyril. 

Theodoret 


Pelagius 


The  murder  of  Hypatia,  as  we  are  assured  by  Socrates 
(vii  15),  brought  no  small  discredit  on  the  patriarch  Cyril  and 
the  Church  of  Alexandria.  Cyril  (380 — 444)  had 
succeeded  Theophilus  as  patriarch  in  412.  Apart 
from  homilies  and  commentaries,  the  extant  works 
of  Cyril  include  a  defence  of  Christianity  against  Julian,  and 
against  the  Arians  and  Nestorians.  He  was  opposed  by  the 
friend  of  Nestorius,  Theodoret  (386 — c.  458),  bishop  of  Cyrrhus 
in  northern  Syria  (428).  Theodoret,  in  his  examination  of 
Christian  truth  in  the  light  of  Greek  philosophy,  written  soon 
after  his  appointment  as  bishop,  institutes  a  comparison  between 
the  various  schools  of  philosophy.  His  statement  of  the  opinions 
of  the  Greek  philosophers  is  of  value  in  so  far  as  it  has  been 
proved  to  be  founded  on  Aetius,  who  lived  in  the  first  century  b.c.1 

The  study  of  Greek  in  this  age  is  illustrated  by  the  fact  that, 
at  the  synod  held  in  415  at  Diospolis  (the  ancient 
Lydda),  Pelagius,  who  was  born  of  a  Roman  family 
in  Britain  ( c .  370 — c.  440),  made  a  great  impression  owing  to  his 
perfect  familiarity  with  Greek,  which  was  an  unknown  tongue  to 
the  historian  Orosius,  the  emissary  of  St  Augustine  at  preceding 
conferences  in  Palestine2.  On  the  side  of  St  Augustine  in  the 
Pelagian  controversy  was  a  good  Greek  scholar,  Marius  Mercator 
(. fl .  418 — 449),  who  wrote  in  Greek  against  the  Nestorians.  The 
decline  of  Greek  scholarship  at  Rome  at  this  time  is  indicated 
by  the  fact  that,  when  Nestorius  sent  a  Greek  letter  and  other 
documents  to  Pope  Celestine  (430),  the  latter  was  compelled  to 
invite  Cassianus  to  come  from  Marseilles  to  translate  them3. 

Athens  was  the  scene  of  the  latest  phase  of  Neo-Platonism. 

* 

The  mystic  teaching  of  the  Syrian  pupil  of  Por¬ 
phyry,  Iamblichus  (d.  c.  330),  author  of  a  life  of 
Pythagoras  and  an  exhortation  to  the  study  of 
philosophy,  including  excerpts  from  Plato  and  Aristotle,  was 
introduced  into  Athens  by  one  Nestorius.  At  the  end  of  the 
fourth  century  a  new  school  was  engrafted  on  the  old  by  the  son 
of  this  Nestorius,  Plutarchus  (d.  431),  who  restored  the  authority 


Neo- 

Platonists. 

Plutarchus 


1  i]  irepl  twv  apeaKbvTiav  £1 ivayuyrj,  Diels,  Doxographi ,  pp.  45  f. 

2  C.  Gidel,  Nouvelles  Etudes  sur  la  litt.  Gr.  i?ioderne  (1878),  p.  61  f. 

3  ib.  64-5. 


XXI.]  NEO-PLATONISTS.  PLUTARCHUS.  SYRIANUS.  365 


of  dialectic,  besides  devoting  himself  to  mystic  speculation,  and 
to  the  Neo-Platonic  exposition  of  Aristotle  as  well  as  Plato.  He 
wrote  an  important  commentary  on  Aristotle’s  treatise  De  Anima\ 
little,  however,  of  his  work  has  survived  except  the  passages 
quoted  by  Olympiodorus  (the  younger)  and  other  commentators 
on  Aristotle.  His  successors  as  heads  of  the  School  of  Athens 
were  Syrianus  (431-8),  Proclus  (438-85),  Marinus,  Isidorus, 
Hegias,  and  lastly  Damascius  (529). 

A  pupil  of  Plutarchus,  Hierocles  of  Alexandria,  who  succeeded 
Hypatia,  and  flourished  between  415  and  450, 
produced  a  commentary  on  the  ‘  golden  verses  ’  of  syrianus168’ 

‘  Pythagoras  ’,  which  is  still  extant  \  A  pupil  of 
Hierocles,  the  Christian  Neo-Platonist  Aeneas,  is  the  author  of  a 
dialogue  called  Theophrastus ,  on  the  immortality  of  the  soul  and 
the  resurrection  of  the  body,  which  is  praised  for  its  brilliant 
style  and  its  successful  imitation  of  Plato.  Of  the  successor  of 
Plutarchus,  Syrianus  of  Alexandria,  we  are  told  that  he  was  in 
the  habit  of  introducing  his  pupils  to  the  ‘lesser  mysteries’  of 
Aristotle  before  initiating  them  in  Plato.  He  is  said  to  have  written 
commentaries  on  the  Phaedo ,  Republic  and  La?vs.  His  commen¬ 
tary  on  three  books  of  the  Metaphysics  has  been  published1  2 ;  his 
comments  on  the  rhetorician  Hermogenes  have  also  survived3. 
About  the  end  of  the  fifth  century  a  commentary  on  Aristotle’s 
Organon  was  produced  by  David  the  Armenian,  a  pupil  of 
Syrianus4.  All  our  knowledge  of  the  Neo-Platonism  of  Syrianus 
is  due  to  his  distinguished  pupil,  Proclus,  who  declares  that  he 
owes  everything  to  that  inspired  teacher.  Proclus  Proclus 
(410 — 485),  who  was  born  in  Constantinople,  and 
studied  grammar  under  Orion,  and  Aristotle  under  Olympiodorus 
the  elder  at  Alexandria,  went  to  Athens  shortly  before  430.  The 
first  place,  at  which  he  sat  down  or  drank  water,  was  close  to  a 
temple  dedicated  to  Socrates.  At  Athens  he  read  with  Syrianus  the 
whole  of  Aristotle,  and  afterwards  Plato ;  and  there  he  remained, 

1  ed.  Gaisford  in  Stobaei  Eclogae ,  ii  (1850) ;  Mullach,  Frag.  Phil,  i  408. 

2  ed.  Usener,  in  Berlin  Aristotle,  v  (1870).  3  ed.  Rabe,  1892-3. 

4  So  Neumann  (1829);  Rose,  however,  De  Ar.  libr.  ordine  (1854)  244  f, 

makes  him  a  pupil  of  Olympiodorus  II  and  places  him  in  the  sixth  century ; 
and  Busse,  Praef.  in  Porphyrium,  xli-iv,  agrees. 


366 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


living  a  laborious  life  in  the  practice  of  severe  abstinence,  and 
continuing  to  preside  over  the  School  for  forty-seven  years.  We 
are  assured  that  he  was  a  deep  thinker,  a  fluent  lecturer  and  a 
man  of  great  personal  charm.  His  pupils  deemed  him  divinely 
inspired,  and  on  one  occasion  a  casual  attendant  at  his  lectures 
declared  that  his  head  was  illumined  with  a  celestial  splendour  \ 
In  accordance  with  his  principle  that  ‘  all  things  sympathise  with 
all'2,  he  held  that  the  philosopher  should  observe  the  religious 
rites  of  all  nations  and  be  ‘  the  hierophant  of  the  whole  world  ’ ; 
he  also  practised  the  cult  of  the  dead,  visiting  in  the  first  instance 
the  tombs  of  the  ancient  Attic  heroes3.  He  reduced  Neo- 
Platonism  to  a  precise  and  systematic  form,  but  was  incapable 
of  restoring  life  to  theories  which  had  long  lost  touch  with  reality. 
He  wrote  rapidly,  and  wrote  much,  mainly  in  the  form  of 
comments  on  Plato.  To  the  teaching  of  Plato  he  adhered  more 
closely  than  Plotinus ;  and  Plato  is  the  source  of  his  system  of 
triads.  Among  his  extant  works  are  commentaries  on  the  Re¬ 
public,  Timaeus  and  Par?nenides ,  also  his  ‘  Theological  Elements  ’ 
and  a  treatise  on  Plato’s  ‘theology’4.  In  the  course  of  his 
commentary  on  the  Republic  he  defends  Homer  against  the 
attacks  of  Plato.  Seven  of  his  Hymns  to  the  Gods  have  survived. 
They  are  inspired  with  the  breath  of  an  ‘  immortal  longing  ’,  like 
that  of  Plato  or  Plotinus;  and  the  poet  is  ever  pressing  toward 
the  ‘path  sublime’,  while  he  prays  to  the  Sun  and  Athene  and 
the  Muses  for  the  pure  and  ‘  kindly  light  that  leads  upwards  (<£(3? 
arayoiyiov),  the  means  of  attaining  thereto  being  the  study  of 
books  that  awaken  the  soul  ’ 5.  His  pupil,  Marinus,  describes 
him  as  having  sounded  all  the  depths  of  the  theology  and 
mythology  of  the  Greeks  and  barbarians,  and  as  having  reduced 
them  to  perfect  harmony6.  Proclus  (says  Zeller)  is  really  a 
‘  scholastic  ’ :  all  his  genius  is  devoted  to  the  interpretation  of 
texts,  which  he  accepts  unreservedly  without  caring  to  criticise 
them7.  It  is  stated  that  he  often  said  that  ‘if  it  were  in  his 
power,  he  would  withdraw  from  the  knowledge  of  men,  for  the 

1  Marinus,  Proclus ,  c.  23.  2  Elements  of  Theology ,  no.  140. 

3  Whittaker,  p.  160.  4  V.  Cousin,  ed.  2,  1864. 

5  Bury’s  Later  Roman  Empire ,  i  316.  6  Marinus,  c.  22. 

7  See,  however,  Whittaker,  p.  162. 


XXL] 


PROCLUS.  HERMEIAS.  AMMONIUS. 


367 


present,  all  ancient  books  except  the  Timaens  and  the  Sacred 
Oracles’1.  He  was  not  thinking  of  the  Scriptures,  but  his 
aspiration  as  to  Plato  was  not  long  afterwards  fulfilled  in  the 
Western  world,  by  the  fact  that  ‘along  with  the  few  compendia 
of  logic  and  the  liberal  arts,  which  furnished  almost  the  sole 
elements  of  European  culture  for  centuries,  there  was  preserved  ’ 
a  Latin  translation  of  a  large  portion  of  the  Timaeus 2. 

After  Proclus,  Neo-Platonism  lived  on  for  about  a  century. 
Among  its  representatives  were  Hermeias  (end  of 
cent,  v),  who  taught  at  Alexandria,  and  whose  Ammonias* 
diffuse  scholia  on  the  Phaedrus  are  still  extant3; 
many  extracts  from  them  are  quoted  in  the  edition  of  Dr  Thomp¬ 
son,  who  observes  that,  ‘amidst  a  heap  of  Neoplatonic  rubbish, 
they  contain  occasional  learned  and  even  sensible  remarks ’ 4. 
He  agrees  with  Synesius 5  in  supposing  that  beauty  of  every  kind 
is  the  theme  of  this  dialogue.  He  was  succeeded  at  Alexandria 
(early  in  cent,  vi)  by  his  son  Ammonius,  who  is  still  represented 
by  his  commentaries  on  the  logical  treatises  of  Aristotle6,  and 
is  the  earliest  of  the  extant  expounders  of  the  Eisagoge  of  Por¬ 
phyry  7.  Among  the  pupils  of  Ammonius  were  Simplicius, 
Asclepius8,  Olympiodorus  the  younger,  and  Joannes  Philoponus. 
The  last  of  these  wrote  (among  other  works)  a  commentary  on 
Aristotle’s  Physics 9. 

After  languishing  under  the  successors  of  Proclus  (Marinus, 
Isidorus  and  Hegias)  the  School  of  Athens  revived  for  the  last 
time  under  Damascius,  who  studied  at  Alexandria  and  was  a 
pupil  of  Marinus  at  Athens.  He  was  not  merely  a 

1  1  #  ...  Damascius 

mystic,  like  Iambhchus ;  he  was  also  a  dialectician, 

like  Proclus.  His  ‘Life  of  Isidorus’  (disfigured  by  many  puerilities) 

1  Marinus,  c.  38.  2  By  Chalcidius ;  Whittaker,  p.  160. 

3  Published  in  Ast’s  ed.,  1810,  and  by  Couvreur,  1902. 

4  Thompson’s  Phaedrus ,  pp.  ix,  92,  136. 

5  Volkmann’s  Synesius ,  p.  148. 

6  ed.  Busse,  Categ.  1895,  De  Inter  fir.  1897. 

7  Busse’s  ed.  (1891),  and  Berlin  program  (1892),  cp.  Bursian’s  Jahresb. 

Ixxix  88. 

8  Comm,  on  Ar.  Metaphysics  A.-7i,  ed.  Hayduck  (1888),  largely  founded  on 
Alexander  of  Aphrodisias. 

9  ed.  Vitelli  (1887-8). 


368 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


and  his  ‘Problems  and  Solutions  on  First  Principles’  have  sur¬ 
vived  1 :  his  commentaries  on  Aristotle  have  perished.  He  was 
the  head  of  the  School  in  529,  when  the  ‘golden  chain’  of  the 
Platonic  succession  was  broken  by  the  edict  of  Justinian,  which 
put  an  end  to  the  teaching  of  Neo-Platonism  at 
of  Athens  Athens.  The  public  payments  to  the  professors 

closed  by  had  long  ceased  ;  even  their  private  endowments 

were  now  suppressed,  and  the  closing  of  the  School 
was  the  natural  consequence2.  Its  teachers  lingered  for  a  short 
time  in  their  Athenian  home,  and,  in*  532,  seven  of  them,  namely 
Diogenes  and  Hermeias,  Eulalius  and  Priscianus,  Damascius, 
Isidorus  and  Simplicius,  left  for  the  court  of  Chosroes,  the  en¬ 
lightened  monarch  who  had  recently  ascended  the  Persian  throne 
and  who  proved  his  interest  in  Greek  philosophy  by  promoting 
the  translation  of  certain  Platonic  and  Aristotelian  writings. 
Their  high  expectations  were  bitterly  disappointed  and  they  soon 
entreated  permission  to  return.  In  533  Chosroes  concluded  a 
treaty  with  Justinian,  which  ensured  the  protection  of  the  philo¬ 
sophers  from  persecution  for  their  opinions 3.  They  returned  to 
the  dominions  of  the  empire,  to  settle,  not  at  Athens,  but  at 
Alexandria.  Among  those  who  had  left  Athens  for  Persia  was 
a  pupil  of  Damascius  and  Hermeias,  Simplicius  of  Cilicia,  whose 
commentaries  on  the  Categories 4, 5  Physics,  De  Caelo 
and  De  Anima 5  of  Aristotle  are  still  extant;  and 
whose  ‘moral  interpretation  of  Epictetus  is  preserved  in  the 
library  of  nations,  as  a  classic  book’6.  This  last  is  popular  in 
style ;  while  the  main  value  of  the  rest  lies  not  in  their  exegesis 
but  in  their  citations  from  early  Greek  philosophers.  After  564 
we  find  at  Alexandria  the  younger  Olympiodorus,  who  has  left 
us  a  life  of  Plato  and  commentaries  on  the  First 
theyyoungerUS  Alcibiades ,  Gorgias,  Phaedo ,  Philebus ,  and  Aristotle’s 
Meteorologica.  They  unfortunately  exhibit  no 
originality,  either  literary  or  philosophic.  The  Neo-Platonic 


Simplicius 


1  airop'uu  /ecu  \6aeis,  ed.  Ruelle  (1889). 

2  Bury’s  Gibbon,  iv  266  n;  cp.  Finlay’s  History  of  Greece ,  i  277-87  Tozer; 
Herzberg’s  Geschichte  Griechenlands,  iii  488 — 545 ;  and  Gregorovius,  Stadt 
Athen  im  Mittelalter ,  i  54-7. 

3  Agathias  ( ft .  570)  ii  30  (Ritter  and  Preller,  ult.).  4  Basel,  1551. 

5-5  ed.  Diels,  Heiberg,  Hayduck  (1882-95).  6  Gibbon,  c.xl  (iv 267  Bury). 


XXI.] 


SIMPLICIUS.  ‘  DIONYSIUS 


369 


School,  and,  with  it,  the  study  of  Greek  philosophy,  practically 
ceased  towards  the  end  of  the  sixth  century  \ 

Shortly  after  the  close  of  the  School  of  Athens,  we  find  (in 
532)  the  first  mention  of  the  writings  of  ‘  Dionysius 
the  Areopagite’.  Their  many  coincidences  with  th*e  Areopagite  • 
the  teaching  of  Proclus  and  Damascius  have  led 
to  their  author  being  identified  as  a  Christian  Neo-Platonist,  and 
to  their  date  being  assigned  to  c.  480 — 520.  The  works  on  the 
heavenly  and  on  the  ecclesiastical  hierarchy  (with  the  triple  triads 
in  each),  and  those  on  the  divine  names  and  on  mystical  theology, 
had  their  influence  on  the  ‘  angelology the  mysticism,  and  (in 
the  case  of  Erigena)  the  pantheism  of  the  Middle  Ages1 2.  Their 
author  has  been  called  the  father  of  Scholasticism.  He  was  specially 
studied  by  John  of  Damascus  in  the  Eastern,  and  by  Aquinas 
in  the  Western  Church ;  while  the  effect  of  his  teaching  may  be 
traced  not  only  in  Savonarola,  Ficino  and  Pico  della  Mirandola, 
but  also  in  Dante3,  in  the  ‘trinall  triplicities ’  of  Spenser4,  and 
in  the  magnificent  line  in  which  Milton  enumerates  more  than 
half  the  orders  of  the  heavenly  hierarchy : — 

‘Thrones,  Dominations,  Princedoms,  Virtues,  Powers’5. 

While  Plato  and  Aristotle  were  being  expounded  at  Athens 
and  Alexandria,  grammar  and  lexicography  were 

1  t  ITT-  11  ,  Grammarians 

not  neglected.  With  the  grammarians  the  mam 
source  of  inspiration  was  Herodian.  It  was  from  Herodian  that 
Timotheus  of  Gaza  ( c .  500)  derived  the  substance  of  his  treatise 
on  combinations  of  vocal  sounds6;  on  the  same  model,  Joannes 
Philoponus  (early  in  cent,  vi),  already  mentioned  as  a  pupil  of 
Ammonius,  wrote  a  work  on  dialects  and  accentuation,  including 

1  On  Neo- Platonism  in  general,  cp.  Zeller,  Phil.  d.  Gr.  iii  2  (and  the 
literature  there  quoted);  also  T.  Whittaker’s  Neo-platonists  (1901);  and  Bigg’s 
Neoplatonism  (1895). 

2  Milman,  Lat.  Chr.  ix  57  f ;  Westcott,  Religious  Thought  in  the  West , 
pp.  142-93;  T.  Whittaker,  p.  188;  H.  Koch,  Pseudo- Dionysius  (1900). 

3  Par.  x  1 1 5-7;  xxviii  97-132. 

4  Hymne  of  Heavenly  Love,  64;  cp.  Hymne  of  Heavenly  Beautie,  85 — 98. 

5  P.  L.  v  601.  The  ultimate  source  of  these  terms  is  the  Vulgate  trans.  of 
Rom.  viii  38;  Col.  i  16.  Cp.  Lupton  in  Did.  Chr.  Biogr.  i  847-8. 

6  Kavdves  KadoXiKal  irepl  avvra^eus,  Cramer,  Anecd.  Par.  iv  239. 


S. 


24 


370 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Lexico¬ 

graphers. 

‘  Ammonius  ’ 


Orion 


an  alphabetical  list  of  words  differing  according  to  their  accent  \ 
which  was  widely  used  in  the  Middle  Ages ;  and,  similarly, 
Joannes  Charax  (in  the  first  half  of  cent,  vi)  compiled  an  abstract 
of  Herodian’s  work  on  Orthography,  part  of  which  (a  fragment  on 
enclitics)  is  still  extant1 2. 

In  lexicography  the  labours  of  the  Atticists  of  the  second 
century  were  continued  in  a  series  of  mechanical 
compilations.  A  treatise  on  Synonyms 3,  attributed 
in  the  mss  to  ‘Ammonius  ’,  who  left  Alexandria  for 
Constantinople  in  391 4,  appears  to  be  only  a  revised  edition  of 
that  of  Herennius  Philon  on  the  same  subject  (p.  355).  A  more 
important  work  is  that  of  Orion,  who  was  born  at  the  Egyptian 
Thebes,  and  was  one  of  the  teachers  of  Proclus 
at  Alexandria  ( c .  430),  and  of  Eudocia,  the  consort 
of  Theodosius  II,  at  Constantinople.  This  was  an  Etymological 
Lexicon,  the  extant  portions  of  which  prove  that  it  was  founded  on 
the  researches  of  Heracleides  Ponticus,  Apollodorus,  Philoxenus, 
Apollonius  Dyscolus,  Herodian,  and  Orus  of  Miletus,  who  has 
often  been  confounded  with  Orion5.  The  work  of  Orion  in  its 
original  form  was  one  of  the  sources  of  the  etymological  compila¬ 
tions  of  the  Byzantine  age. 

Hesychius  of  Alexandria,  who  probably  belongs  to  the  fifth 
century,  is  the  compiler  of  the  most  extensive  of 
our  ancient  Greek  lexicons.  It  is  not  so  much 
a  ‘lexicon’  as  a  glossary.  In  the  preface  it  is 
described  as  a  new  edition  of  the  work  of  Diogenianus  (p.  288), 
with  additions  from  the  Homeric  lexicons  of  Apion  and  Apollonius 
(the  son  of  Archibius).  Whether  the  lexicon  of  Diogenianus  was 
an  independent  work,  or  only  an  abstract  of  that  of  Pamphilus 


Hesychius 
of  Alexandria 


1  ed.  Egenolff  (1880). 

2  Bekker’s  Anecd.  1149-56.  Krumbacher,  Byz.  Litt.  §  242s  f. 

3  7 repi  bfioLwv  kcli  Si a<f>bpwv  Xti-ewv,  ed.  C.  F.  Ammon  (1787).  Christ,  §  629s. 
Cohn  in  Pauly- Wissowa,  Ammonios  (no.  17),  ascribes  the  work  to  the  Byzantine 
age. 

4  Socr.  Hist.  Eccl.  v  16. 

5  Ritschl,  De  Oro  et  Orione ,  Opusc.  i  582 — 673 ;  Christ,  §  6303.  Orus  and 
Orion  were  probably  contemporaries ;  both  of  them  taught  first  at  Alexandria, 
and  afterwards  at  Constantinople  (cp.  Reitzenstein’s  Etymologika ,  pp.  287  f, 
and  348). 


XXI.] 


HESYCHIUS. 


371 


Hesychius 
of  Miletus 


(p.  288),  is  still  a  matter  of  controversy.  Hesychius  is  of  special 
value  in  connexion  with  the  emendation  of  classical  authors. 
His  work  has  often  enabled  Ruhnken  and  later  critics  to  restore 
the  original  word  in  ancient  texts  where  its  place  has  been  taken 
by  an  explanatory  synonym.  The  existing  lexicon,  large  as  it  is, 
is  an  abridgement  only;  in  its  original  form,  it  apparently  included 
the  names  of  the  authorities  for  each  statement  \ 

In  the  next  century  another  scholar  of  the  same  name, 
Hesychius  of  Miletus,  who  lived  under  Justinian, 
was  the  author  of  a  lexicon  of  special  importance 
in  connexion  with  the  history  of  Greek  literature 2. 

He  owed  much  to  Aelius  Dionysius  and  Herennius  Philon.  Our 
knowledge  of  his  lexicon  is  solely  due  to  the  citations  of  Sui'das, 
who  describes  his  own  work  as  an  epitome  of  that  of  Hesychius 
of  Miletus. 

The  reign  of  Justinian  saw  an  abridgement  of  the  great  geo¬ 
graphical  lexicon  of  Stephanus  of  Byzantium.  The 
original  work  was  produced  after  400  a.d.  ;  and  its  Byzantium S  °f 
extent  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  the 
articles  before  2  filled  as  many  as  fifty  books.  The  only  part 
of  the  original  which  has  been  preserved  is  the  article  on  T/fypia 
and  those  from  A vfxrj  to  A umov.  It  must  have  included  many 
extracts  from  ancient  authors,  with  notices  of  historical  events 
and  famous  personages.  In  grammar  Stephanus  follows  Herodian; 
and,  in  geography,  Hecataeus,  Ephorus,  Eratosthenes,  Artemidorus 
(y?.  ioob.c.),  Strabo,  Pausanias,  and  especially  Herennius  Philon3. 

Among  the  earliest  of  compilers  of  chrestomathies  was  Proclus, 
who  is  regarded  by  Gregory  of  Nazianzus 4  and  by 
Sui'das  as  identical  with  Proclus  the  Neo-Platonist 
(p.  365),  and  this  opinion  is  accepted  by  Wilamowitz5, 
though  the  character  of  the  work  is  totally  different  from  that  of 


Chresto¬ 

mathies. 

Proclus. 


1  Ruhnken’s  Praefatio,  in  Opusc.  pp.  192 — 219. 

2  6vo/xaro\6yos  rj  irlva.%  Ttou  iv  tt cudela  dvo/j-aarQu.  Hesychti  Milesii  Ono- 
matologi  quae  supersunt,  ed.  Flach  (1882).  Cp.  Krumbacher,  Byz.  Litt . 

§  1 392* 

3  Christ,  §  5973;  ed.  Dindorf  (1825),  Westermann  (1839),  Meineke  (1849). 

4  Migne,  xxxvi  914,  Hp6i<\os  6  IlXarwi't/cds  ev  povofttfiXip  irepl  kijkXov 
yeypafifilvy. 

5  Phil.  Unt.  vii  330. 


372 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


the  extant  writings  of  that  philosopher.  Earlier  scholars 1 2  had 
identified  him  with  Eutychius  Proculus  of  Sicca  (instructor  of 
M.  Aurelius),  who,  however,  is  a  Latin 2  grammarian.  He  is 
possibly  the  Proclus,  whose  ‘enumeration  of  festivals’  is  mentioned 
by  Alexander  of  Aphrodisias 3.  For  almost  all  our  knowledge  of 
the  ‘grammatical  (i.e.  literary)  chrestomathy ’  of  Proclus  we  are 
indebted  to  Photius  (cod.  239),  who  states  that,  in  the  first  two 
books,  the  author,  after  distinguishing  between  poetry  and  prose, 
dealt  with  epic,  elegiac,  iambic  and  melic  poetry,  naming  the 
leading  representatives  of  each ;  and  that  he  described  the  epic 
cycle  in  particular  as  a  consecutive  series  of  poems  by  various 
authors.  This  account  is  confirmed  by  the  fragments  of  Proclus 
preserved  in  the  codex  Venetus  of  the  Iliad  and  in  some  other 
mss.  They  include  a  short  life  of  Homer,  and  a  list  of  the 
authors  of  the  Trojan  part  of  the  cycle,  viz.  the  Cypria ,  the  Iliad, 
the  Aethiopis  (Arctinus),  the  Little  Iliad  (Lesches),  the  Iliupersis 
(Arctinus),  the  Nosti  (Agias),  the  Odyssey,  and  the  Telegonia 
(Eugammon),  with  an  abstract  of  the  contents  of  all  except  the 
Iliad  and  the  Odyssey.  Our  knowledge  of  the  contents  of  the 
lost  epics  of  Greece  comes  almost  entirely  from  this  source4. 
The  two  other  books  probably  dealt  with  dramatic  poetry,  and 
prose. 

The  Readings  in  History  by  Sopater  of  Apamea,  and  the 
sources  from  which  they  were  derived,  are  known  to  us  solely 
through  the  account  in  Photius  (cod.  161).  The  only  Chresto¬ 
mathy  which  has  come  down  to  us  in  an  approximately  complete 
form  is  that  of  Joannes  Stobaeus  (of  Stobi  in 
Macedonia),  who  is  probably  not  much  later  than 
Hierocles  (c.  450),  the  latest  author  whom  he  cites.  In  its 
original  form  it  was  in  four  books,  (1)  on  philosophy,  theology 
and  physics,  (2)  on  dialectic,  rhetoric,  poetry  and  ethics,  (3)  on 
virtues  and  vices,  (4)  on  politics  and  domestic  economy.  The 

1  Valesius,  and  Welcker,  Ep.  Cycl.  i  3  f. 

2  Capitolinus,  M.  Aurelius,  c.  2. 

3  On  Aristot.  Soph.  El.  p.  4. 

4  D.  B.  Monro’s  Appendix  to  Homer’s  Od.  (1901),  pp.  343 — 383.  Christ, 
§  637s ;  Croiset,  v  978.  Text  in  Gaisford’s  Hephaestion,  and  Westphal’s  Scr. 
Metr.  Gr. 


XXI.] 


PROCLUS.  STOBAEUS.  APHTHONIUS. 


373 


work  is  divided  into  206  sections,  each  denoted  by  a  short  motto 
under  which  all  the  extracts  are  grouped,  first  those  in  verse, 
and  then  those  in  prose.  The  number  of  writers  thus  represented 
is  no  less  than  500  1.  In  the  Middle  Ages  the  four  books  were 
treated  by  copyists  as  belonging  to  two  separate  works,  (1)  and 
(2)  being  entitled  ‘  Extracts  on  Physics  and  Ethics  ’  (c/cAoyat), 
and  (3)  and  (4)  the  ‘Anthology’,  a  name  that  really  belongs  to 
the  whole  work2. 

The  study  of  rhetoric  still  survived  as  part  of  a  general 
education  and  as  a  necessary  preparation  for  public 

.  .  .  .  Rhetoricians 

life.  We  may  here  briefly  notice  Aphthomus,  who, 

as  a  pupil  of  Libanius,  belongs  to  the  end  of  the  fourth  and  the 

beginning  of  the  fifth  centuries.  He  is  celebrated 

°  &  .  .  .  Aphthonius 

for  his  small  manual  of  preliminary  exercises  (7 rpo- 
yv/xvatr/xara),  a  work  remarkable  for  its  simplicity  and  clearness, 
and  for  the  variety  of  its  examples3.  It  follows  the  tradition 
of  Hermogenes,  but  the  number  of  the  exercises  is  here  extended 
from  twelve  to  fourteen  by  the  separation  of  ‘  refutation  ’  from 
‘  confirmation  ’,  and  the  introduction  of  a  new  section  on  ‘  blame  ’. 
It  was  the  theme  of  several  commentaries,  and  continued  to  be 
used  as  a  text-book  not  only  in  the  Byzantine  age4,  but  even 
as  late  as  the  seventeenth  century.  It  is  happily  described  by 
Mr  Saintsbury  (i  92)  as  ‘one  of  the  most  craftsmanlike  cram- 
books  that  ever  deserved  the  encomium  of  the  epithet  and  the 
discredit  of  the  noun  ’.  After  Aphthonius,  the  writers  on  rhetoric 
are  only  commentators  on  their  predecessors.  Thus  Troilus 
(c.  400),  Syrianus  (430),  Marcellinus  (< c .  500)  and  Sopater  (early 
in  cent,  vi)  all  wrote  commentaries  on  Hermogenes.  Marcellinus 
was  also  the  author  of  an  extant  life  of  Thucydides,  probably 
founded  on  the  labours  of  Didymus  5. 


1  Photius,  cod.  167;  Meineke’s  praef.  xxxvii. 

2  ed.  Gaisford  (1822);  Meineke  (1857) ;  Wachsmuth  and  Heyse  (1884-95) ; 
cp.  Christ,  §  639* ;  Croiset,  v  979. 

3  Spengel,  ii.  Cp.  Christ,  §  546 3 ;  Croiset,  v  982  f. 

4  Commentaries  by  Joannes  Geometres  (first  half  of  cent,  x)  and  Joannes 
Doxopatres  (first  half  of  cent,  xi)  are  mentioned  by  Krumbacher,  Byz.  Litt.  452, 

462  and  esp.  735 2. 

6  Susemihl,  Gr.  Litt.  Alex .  ii  203  n. 


374 


THE  ROMAN  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Early  in  the  sixth  century  the  principal  schools  of  ancient 
learning  in  the  East  were  those  of  Athens,  Alex- 
of1 2 * * Siearn!ng  andria  and  Constantinople  \  Of  these,  Athens 
was  the  last  stronghold  of  paganism ;  Alexandria, 
‘the  centre  of  the  widest  culture’,  the  home  (especially  in  the 
fourth  and  fifth  centuries)  of  pagan  poetry  and  philosophy,  as 
well  as  of  Christian  theology;  and  Constantinople,  the  seat  of 
a  university  since  the  time  of  Theodosius  II2,  and,  to  a  large 
extent,  a  school  of  Christian  learning 3.  The  secular  library  there 
founded  by  Julian  (with  its  marvellous  ms  of  Homer,  forty  yards 
long)  had  been  destroyed  by  fire  in  491,  but  there  was  a  library 
of  ecclesiastical  literature  in  the  patriarchal  palace4.  The  best 
days  of  Nicomedeia  and  Antioch  were  in  the  fourth  century, 
in  the  times  of  Libanius.  The  Greek  and  Syriac  school  of 
Edessa  in  Western  Mesopotamia  had  been  finally  closed  in  489. 
Apart  from  these,  the  eastern  shores  of  the  Mediterranean  could 
boast  of  Berytus,  which,  from  the  third  century  till  its  destruction 
by  an  earthquake  in  551,  was  a  great  school  of  Roman  law, 
besides  being  (as  described  by  Eusebius)  a  school  of  Greek 
secular  learning 5.  Further  to  the  south  was  the  school  of 
Caesarea,  which  had  counted  Origen  among  its  teachers,  and 
the  historians  Eusebius  and  Procopius  (fl.  527 — 562)  among  its 
students.  There  was  even  a  home  of  culture  in  the  former  land 
of  the  Philistines.  Towards  the  close  of  the  fifth  century,  Gaza6 
produced  a  grammarian  in  Timotheus,  and  rhetoricians  such  as 
Procopius  of  Gaza  (y7.  491 — 527),  whose  paraphrases  of  Homer 
were  admired  by  Photius7,  and  his  pupil  and  successor,  Choricius8, 
who  held  the  office  of  orator  under  Justin  and  Justinian.  The 
speeches  of  Choricius  were  among  the  models  studied  in  the 


1  Himerius,  vii  13;  Themistius,  xxiii  p.  355. 

2  Bury,  i  128.  3  Bury,  i  212,  317. 

4  Bernhardy,  Gr.  Litt.  i  66 44;  Bury,  i  252. 

5  De  Mart.  Palaest.  iv  3;  cp.  Liban.  Ep.  1033;  and  Bernhardy,  Gr.  Litt. 

i  664A  Nonnus,  Dion,  xli  396,  calls  it  *  the  nurse  of  tranquil  life  ’,  and  Agathias, 

ii  15,  ‘the  pride  (iyKaWuiriafia)  of  Phoenicia 

6  Seitz,  Die  Schule  von  Gaza  (1892) ;  Roussos,  rpeis  VafaioL  (1893). 

7  p.  103  a.  His  Letters  are  published  in  the  Epistolographi  Graeci  (ed. 
Didot).  Cp.  Eisenhofer  (1897). 

8  ed.  Boissonade,  1846 ;  Forster  in  Philol.  liv  93 — 123  &c. 


XXI.] 


SCHOOLS  OF  LEARNING. 


375 


Byzantine  age,  and  they  are  even  now  of  value  in  the  textual 
criticism  of  Demosthenes1. 

All  the  rhetoricians,  lexicographers  and  grammarians,  whom 
we  have  now  passed  in  review,  belong  to  the  age  that  ended 
with  529  a.d.,  the  eventful  year  in  which  the  School  of  Athens 
was  closed  in  the  East,  and  the  Monastery  of  Monte  Cassino 
founded  in  the  West.  Three  years  later  (532)  the  rebuilding 
of  the  Church  dedicated  to  the  Eternal  Wisdom  by  the  founder 
of  Constantinople  was  begun  by  Justinian,  who  adorned  that 
Christian  Church  with  columns  from  the  pagan  temples  of 
Ephesus  and  Heliopolis,  and  left  behind  him,  in  the  many-tinted 
marbles,  the  deeply-carved  capitals,  the  lofty  dome  and  the 
spacious  splendour  of  Santa  Sophia,  the  last  of  the  great  religious 
buildings  of  the  ancient  world.  Between  529,  the  date  of  the 
publication  of  Justinian’s  Code ,  and  533,  that  of  the  completion 
of  the  Digest  and  the  Institutes,  the  legal  learning  of  the  past 
was  summed  up  and  reduced  to  a  systematic  form,  while  the 
old  Roman  Law  of  the  Twelve  Tables  was  finally  superseded. 
In  the  following  year,  the  emperor  who  had  suppressed  the 
School  of  Athens,  put  an  end  to  the  consulship  of  Rome,  thus 
virtually  closing  the  Roman  age  in  the  West,  as  he  had  already 
closed  it  in  the  East2. 

1  See  index  to  present  writer’s  First  Philippic  and  Olynthiacs  of 
Demosthenes. 

2  If,  in  the  transitional  reign  of  Justinian,  any  further  event  should  be  sought 
to  mark  the  end  of  the  old  order  and  the  beginning  of  the  new,  it  may  be 
found  perhaps  (with  Prof.  Bury)  in  the  plague  of  542,  which  raged  for  four 
months  in  Constantinople  and  for  four  years  in  the  Roman  Empire.  ‘  When  the 
plague  has  ceased,  we  feel  in  550  that  we  are  moving  in  a  completely  other 
world  than  that  of  540’  (Bury’s  Later  Roman  Empire ,  i  400). 


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BOOK  V. 


THE  BYZANTINE  AGE. 


etTTepTjOrjfxev  kcu  fiifiXioiv,  kcuvov  tovto  kcu  7rapaSo£ov,  kcu  vea 
KaO'  t]p.(jjv  €7rLV€vor)p,evr)  Tipopia. 

Photius,  ad  Imperatorem  Basilium,  Ep.  218,  ed.  Valettas. 

pd]  6avp.d(rr]<s ,  et  <£tA.o?  * AOrjvaitov  kcu  YleXoTrovvrjcrLoiv  KaOeaTrjKa 
...Set  yap  tov s  7ratSas  dya-nacrdai  Sta.  rous  Trarepas. 

Psellus,  Ep.  20,  ed.  Sathas. 

rt  Sy  7 rore,  a>  aypap/uare,  poi/cumypiciKTjv  /3t/3XLo0ijKr]v  rrj  arj 
Trape^uracrets  ^XV  >  Ka'L  °Tt  Karexets  ypappara ,  iKKCvocs  kcu 

avrrjv  rw  ypap.p,aTo<f>6p(ov  or/cevtSv;  a<£es  avrrjv  ark yetv  ra  rt/ua. 
e\ev(T€Tat  ns  pern  (re,  r/  ypappa/ra,  paOoJV,  r)  aAAa  <£tA.oypapparo9. 

Eustathius,  De  emendanda  vita  monastica ,  c.  128,  ed.  Tafel. 


Conspectus  of  Greek  Literature,  &c.,  600 — 1000  A.D 


Emperors 

600 - 

602  Phocas 
6x0  Heraclius 


641  Heraclius, 
Constantinus, 
and  Heracleo- 
nas 

642  Constans  II 

668  Constantine 
IV 

685  Justinian  II 
695  Leontius 
697  Tiberius  III 

700 - 

705  Justinian  II 
(restored) 

711  Philippicus 

712  Anastasius 

II 

715  Theodosius 

III 

House  of  Leo 
717  Leo  III 

741  Constantine 

V 

775  Leo  IV 
780  Constantine 

VI 

797  Irene  of 
Athens 

800 - 

8o2NicephorusI 
81 1  Stauracius 
81 1  Michael  I 
813  Leo  V 
820  Michael  II 
829  Theophilus 

842  Michael  III 


Macedonian 
Dynasty 
867  Basil  I 

886  Leo  VI 

900 - 

912-59  Constan- 
tine  VII 
920-44  Roma- 
nus  I 


959  Romanus  II 
963  Nicephorus 
II 

969  J  ohn  I , 
Zimisces 
976  Basil  II 


1000 


Poets 

Historians, 

Chroniclers 

Rhetoricians 

Scholars 

Ecclesiastical 

Writers 

626  Sergius 

629  Sophronius 
610-41  Georgius 
Pisides 

6x0-31  John  of 
Antioch 
610-40  Theophy- 
lact  Simocattes 
630  Chronicon 
Paschale 

Philopatris 
c.  602 — 610 

6ioStephanusof 

Alexandria 

630  Maximus 
Confessor 

580 — 662 

Barlaam  and 
Josaphat 

Andreas  of  Crete 
c.  650 — 720 

Jacob  of  Edessa 
ft.  651—719 

Anastasius 
Sinaites 
ft.  640 — 700 

736  John  of 

Damascus 
c.  699— c.  753 
743  Cosmas  of 
Jerusalem 
Stephen  of  St 
Sabas 

725—794 

Theodorus 

Studites 

759—826 

Georgius 
Syncellus 
ft.  784 — c.  810 

736  John  of 
Damascus 

830  Josephus 
Studites  d.  883 

Nicephorus 
Patriarches 
d.  829 

813  Theophanes 
Confessor  d.  817 

Theophanes 
continuatus 
813 — 961 

867  Georgius 
Monachus 

Nicolaus, 

Epistolae 

852—925 

Theognostus 
ft.  813-20 
Michael 
Syncellus 
ft.  829-42 
830-76  Syriac 
and  Arabic 
translations 
of  Aristotle 

857  Photius 
c.  820 — c.  891 
863  Cometas 

870  d.  Alkendi 
870  Ignatius 

882  E  tymologi- 
cum  parvu7ti 

806  Nicephorus 
Patriarches 
d.  829  j; 

857  Photius 
c.  820 — c.  891 

9i7Constantinus 
Cephalas,  edi¬ 
tor  of  Antho- 
logia  Palatina 

Constantine 
Porphyrogeni- 
tus  905 — 959 

907  Arethas 
c.  860 — 932  + 

961  Theodosius, 
'AAwtrts  Kpijnjs 
John  Geometres 
ft.  963—986 

963  Symeon 
Magister 

• 

992  LeoDiaconus 
c.  950 — 992 

950  d.  Alfarabi 
950-76  Su'idas 

Symeon  Meta- 
phrastes,Z,z'zw 
of  Saints 

CHAPTER  XXII. 


BYZANTINE  SCHOLARSHIP  FROM  529  TO  IOOO  A.D. 

In  the  history  of  Greek  Literature  the  Byzantine  age,  in  the 
broadest  sense  of  the  term,  may  be  said  to  begin  with  the 
founding  of  Constantinople  in  330  and  to  end  with  its  fall 
in  1453.  It  may  be  divided  into  three  parts  :  (1)  the  early 
Byzantine  period,  of  about  three  centuries,  from  330  to  the  death 
of  Heraclius  in  641 ;  (2)  the  intervening  period  of  two  centuries, 
which,  so  far  as  secular  learning  at  Constantinople  is  concerned, 
may  be  described  as  a  dark  age  extending  from  about  641  to 
about  850 ;  (3)  the  later  Byzantine  period  of  six  centuries  from 
850  to  14531.  In  the  history  of  Scholarship  this  third  period 
extends  over  five  centuries  only,  beginning  in  850  with  the  great 
revival  of  Byzantine  learning  heralded  by  the  auspicious  name 
of  Photius,  and  ending  about  1350,  when,  a  full  century  before 
the  fall  of  Constantinople,  the  interest  in  Scholarship  passes 
westward  to  the  cities  of  Northern  Italy  which  caught  the  first 
rays  of  the  new  light  that  came  to  them  from  the  East. 

In  our  survey  of  the  history  of  Scholarship,  we  have  found 
it  convenient  to  treat  the  first  two  centuries  (330 — 529)  of  the 
first  of  the  above  periods  as  the  last  two  centuries  of  the  Roman 

age,  leaving  a  period  of  little  more  than  a  century  period  1, 
(529 — 641)  for  the  opening  pages  of  the  present  529—641- 
Book.  In  this  century,  history  is  represented  by  Hlstonans 
the  ‘statesman  and  soldier’  Procopius  of  Caesarea  (Jl.  527 — 562), 
the  secretary  of  Belisarius  and  the  historian  of  his  campaigns, 
who  resembles  Herodotus  in  his  love  of  the  marvellous,  Thucy¬ 
dides  in  his  diction,  and  Polybius  in  his  subordination  of  the 

1  Krumbacher,  Geschichte  der  Byzantinischen  Litteratur,  ed.  2,  1897, 

pp.  nf. 


380 


THE  BYZANTINE  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


course  of  events  to  the  influence  of  Fortune1;  by  the  ‘poet  and 
rhetorician  ’ 2  and  student  of  the  ancient  classics,  Agathias 
(536 — 582),  who,  in  relating  the  end  of  the  Gothic  war,  the 
Perso-Colchian  wars  (541 — 556)  and  the  invasion  of  the  Huns 
(558),  recognises  a  divine  Being  (to  Ofiov)  as  the  author  of 
retribution3;  by  Menander  Protector  (582),  the  imitator  and 
continuator  of  Agathias ;  and  by  the  Egyptian  Theophylactus 
Simocattes,  the  euphuistic  historian  who  describes  the  reign  of 
Maurice  (582 — 602)  in  a  style  rich  in  metaphors  borrowed  from 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures  and  the  Greek  Romances.  Antiquarian 
research  is  the  province  of  Joannes  Lydus  ( c .  490 — 570),  who 
studied  Aristotle  and  Plato  under  a  pupil  of  Proclus,  and  in  his 
work  On  Offices  gave  a  full  account  of  the  Roman  civil  service 
and  the  causes  of  its  decline 4.  In  poetry  we  have  an  imitator 
of  Callimachus  and  of  Nonnus  in  the  person  of 

Poets  .  .  r 

Paulus  Silentianus  (the  gentleman-usher  who  pre¬ 
served  silence  in  the  palace  of  Justinian),  the  author  of  nearly 
100  elegant  epigrams  in  the  Palatine  Anthology 5,  and  also  of 
a  celebrated  Description  of  the  Church  of  Santa  Sophia 6,  in  which 
he  incidentally  betrays  his  contempt  for  the  Athenians,  and  at 
the  same  time  flatters  the  emperor  who  closed  their  philosophic 
School,  by  stating  that  his  verses  will  be  judged,  not  by  ‘  bean¬ 
eating  Athenians,  but  by  men  of  piety  and  indulgence,  in  whom 
God  and  the  Emperor  find  pleasure’7.  George  of  Pisidia  ( Georgius 
Pisides ),  besides  celebrating  the  campaigns  of  Heraclius,  wrote 
a  poem  on  the  Creation,  intended  to  refute  Aristotle  and  Plato, 
Porphyry  and  Proclus.  Except  in  a  single  poem,  in  which  he 
imitates  the  hexameters  of  Nonnus,  he  uses  the  iambic  measure 
alone,  and  is  generally  strict  in  observing  its  rules ;  but  he  departs 
from  the  standard  of  the  ancient  poets  in  breaking  the  law  of 
the  final  Cretic,  and  in  never  allowing  the  accent  to  fall  on  the 

1  Bury’s  Later  Roman  Empire ,  ii  1 78. 

2  Gibbon,  c.  43  (iv  420  Bury). 

3  Bury,  ii  254  f. 

4  ib.  ii  183  f. 

5  e.g.  v  266,  270,  301. 

6  ed.  Graefe  (1822) ;  Bekker  (1837) ;  German  trans.  Salzenberg  (1854). 

7  Bury,  ii  185  f. 


XXII.] 


HISTORIANS  AND  POETS. 


381 

last  syllable  of  the  line1.  Psellus,  the  foremost  representative 
of  the  Byzantine  literature  of  the  eleventh  century,  did  him  the 
honour  of  devoting  a  long  letter  to  answering  the  question 
‘  whether  Euripides  or  Pisides  wrote  better  verses’2 3.  The  historian 
Agathias,  who  in  his  youth  was  addicted  to  heroic  verse  and 
‘loved  the  sweets  of  poetic  refinement’,  allows  reminiscences  of 
the  poets  to  colour  his  prose.  He  contributes  about  100  epigrams 
to  the  Palatine  Anthology9,  with  a  preface4  written  in  the  style 
of  the  New  Comedy  and  including  a  quotation  from  the  Knights 
of  Aristophanes  (1.  55  f).  He  assures  us  that  ‘poetry  is  really 
a  thing  divine  and  holy’,  and  that  ‘its  votaries  (as  Plato  would 
say)  are  in  a  state  of  fine  phrenzy’5.  The  sacred  poets  of  this 
age  are  Sergius,  patriarch  of  Constantinople  (626)  and  Sophronius, 
patriarch  of  Jerusalem  (629). 

Late  in  the  sixth  century  is  the  earliest  date  that  can  be 
assigned  to  Georgius  Choeroboscus,  who  played 

&  ®  .  .  ...  Choeroboscus 

an  important  part  in  Byzantine  education  by  his 
lectures  on  Grammar  at  the  university  of  Constantinople6.  The 
chronological  order  of  his  principal  works  was:  (1)  a  treatise  on 
prosody,  followed  by  lectures  on  (2)  Dionysius  Thrax,  (3)  Theo¬ 
dosius,  (4)  orthography,  (5)  Hephaestion,  and  (6)  Apollonius  and 
Herodian.  His  grammatical  learning  is  derived  from  the  above 
authors,  and  from  Orus,  Sergius,  Philoponus  and  Charax,  the 
last  three  of  whom  belong  to  the  sixth  century.  He  is  himself 
first  quoted  in  the  Etymologicum  Florentinum ,  a  ms  of  cent,  x, 
representing  a  work  prepared  under  the  direction  of  Photius, 
with  the  aid  of  authorities  which  followed  Choeroboscus,  who 
accordingly  cannot  well  be  placed  later  than  7507.  His  prolix 
lectures  on  the  rules  of  Theodosius  of  Alexandria  on  nouns  and 
verbs  have  come  down  to  us  in  a  complete  form,  part  of  them 

1  id.  ii  25 6  f. 

2  Leo  Allatius,  De  Georgiis,  reprinted  in  Fabricius,  Bibl.  Gr.  x  j{;  Bouvy, 
Poetes  et  Melodes  (1886),  p.  169  ;  Krumbacher,  p.  7102. 

3  e.g.  v  237,  261 ;  vi  76.  4  iv  3. 

5  Bury,  ii  185. 

6  Certain  MSS  of  his  scholia  on  Theodosius  describe  him  as  SiaKovos  and 
olKovfJLevLKos  5i5acr/ca\os.  He  was  also  the  University  Librarian,  xaPro0l'^a£* 

Cp.  Hilgard,  in  Gra?n.  Gr.  iv  p.  lxi  f. 

7  Reitzenstein,  Etymologika ,  p.  194,  n.  4. 


382 


THE  BYZANTINE  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Stephanus 


having  been  taken  down  by  dictation  (cbro  Kfxovrjs)1.  He  appears 
to  have  had  comparatively  little  influence  on  the  later  Byzantine 
grammarians,  who  preferred  to  study  the  great  original  writers 
on  grammar,  but  in  the  age  of  the  Renaissance  he  is  closely 
followed  in  the  text-books  of  Constantine  Lascaris  (1463-8;  ed. 
pr.  Milan,  1476)  and  Urbanus  of  Belluno  (Venice,  1497) 2. 

Early  in  the  seventh  century  (610)  Aristotle  was  being  ex¬ 
pounded  by  Stephanus  of  Alexandria,  the  author  of 
commentaries  on  the  Categories 3,  De  Interpretation , 
De  Caelo ,  de  Anima ,  Analytics ,  Sophistici  Elenchi ,  and  Rhetoric 4. 

The  ecclesiastical  writers  of  this  age  include  Anastasius, 
patriarch  of  Antioch  (559,  d.  599),  a  precursor  of  Scholasticism, 
and  an  opponent  of  Justinian’s  opinion  that  the  body  of  Christ 
was  incorruptible ;  and  Maximus  Confessor  (580 — 662),  the 
private  secretary  of  Heraclius  and  the  opponent  of  his  views 
on  monotheletism.  The  latter  is  among  the  persons  conjectured 
as  possible  authors  of  the  anonymous  Chronicon  Rascha/e,  an 
epitome  of  the  history  of  the  world  from  the 
Creation  to  630  a.d.,  containing  lists  of  consuls 
first  published  by  Sigonius  (1556),  and  many  other 
chronological  details  first  communicated  by  Casaubon  to  Scaliger 
and  published  by  the  latter  in  his  edition  of  the  Chronicon  of 
Eusebius  (1606)5.  Among  the  authorities  on  which  it  is  founded 
are  Sextus  Julius  Africanus  and  Eusebius,  the  Consular  Fasti 
and  the  Chronicle  of  John  Malalas.  This  last  in  its  present  form 
ends  with  the  year  563 ;  its  author  was  a  native  of 
Antioch,  who  aimed  at  supplying  the  public  of  his 
day  with  a  handbook  of  chronology  written  in  the  language  of 
ordinary  life.  The  only  ms  is  in  the  Bodleian ;  the  name  of  the 
author  was  identified  by  John  Gregory  (d.  1646),  and  the  work 
published  by  John  Mill  (1691),  with  an  appendix  consisting  of 
the  famous  ‘  Letter  to  Mill  ’,  which  revealed  to  Europe  the  critical 
skill  and  the  scholarship  of  Bentley.  In  this  ‘  Letter’  the  passages 


Chronicon 

Paschale 


Malalas 


1  ed.  Hilgard,  Gram.  Gr.  iv  1  (1889)  101 — 417  and  iv  2  (1894)  Proleg. 
and  1 — 371. 

2  Krumbacher,  §  244s.  3  ed.  Hayduck  (1885). 

4  ed.  Rabe,  Comm.  Arist.  xxi  2. 

5  Salmon  in  Did.  Chr.  Biogr.  i  510. 


XXII.] 


MALALAS.  JOHN  OF  DAMASCUS. 


383 


quoted  by  Malalas  from  the  Greek  poets  are  emended  and  ex¬ 
plained,  the  laws  of  the  anapaestic  metre  laid  down,  and  the 
blunders  in  proper  names  corrected,  the  ‘  earliest  dramatists  ’ 
Themis,  Minos  and  Auleas  being  shown  to  be  mistakes  for 
Thespis,  Ion  of  Chios  and  Aeschylus1.  To  the  first  half  of  the 
seventh  century  may  be  assigned  the  legend  of  the  monk  Barlaam 
and  the  Indian  prince  Josaphat,  the  most  famous 
and  most  widely-known  romance  of  the  Middle  jofaphat"1  and 
Ages.  The  discovery  of  a  Syriac  version  of  the 
lost  Greek  original  of  the  Apology  of  Aristides  in  the  monastery 
of  mount  Sinai  shows  that  sixteen  printed  pages  of  Barlaam  and 
Josaphat  are  borrowed  directly  from  Aristides 2. 

Our  second  period  of  two  centuries  (641 — 850)  includes  the 
hundred  years  of  the  iconoclastic  emperors,  Leo 
the  ‘Isaurian’  having  issued  in  727  the  decree  6^— 85^  H’ 
against  images,  which  was  revoked  by  the  empress 
Eirene  in  802,  and  Leo  the  Armenian  having  in  816  promulgated 
a  similar  decree,  which  was  finally  set  aside  by  the  empress 
Theodora  in  843.  The  chief  opponent  of  the  iconoclasm  of  Leo 
the  ‘Isaurian’  was  the  Syrian  John  of  Damascus  ( c .  699 — 7 5 3 ) 33 
who  held  high  office  at  the  court  of  the  Saracens, 
and  sent  forth  from  Damascus  three  celebrated  Damascus 
discourses  in  defence  of  the  worship  of  images. 

He  had  been  educated  by  Cosmas,  an  Italian  monk  familiar 
with  Plato  and  Aristotle,  who  had  been  brought  by  Arab  pirates, 
probably  from  the  shores  of  Calabria,  to  the  slave-market  of 
Damascus.  John  is  also  celebrated  as  the  author  of  the  Fons 
Scientiae  (7 rrjyrj  yvwarcws),  an  encyclopaedia  of  Christian  theology 
beginning  with  brief  chapters  on  the  Categories  of  Aristotle, 
together  with  extracts  from  the  Eisagoge  of  Porphyry,  for  his 
knowledge  of  both  of  which  he  was  indebted  to  Leontius  of 
Byzantium  (485 — c.  542).  Elsewhere,  he  describes  certain  of 
his  opponents  as  seeing  in  Aristotle  ‘a  thirteenth  apostle’4.  In 


1  Jebb’s  Bentley ,  pp.  12 — 16  ;  Prof.  G.  T.  Stokes,  in  Did.  Chr.  Biogr. 
s.v.  ;  Krumbacher,  §  1402. 

2  J.  Armitage  Robinson,  Cambridge  Texts  and  Studies,  1891  ;  Krumbacher, 
§  39 22  ;  Bury,  ii  532-4. 

3  Krumbacher,  §§  16,  275s.  4  Contra  Jacobitas ,  c.  10. 


384 


THE  BYZANTINE  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


applying  to  Christian  theology  the  logical  system  of  Aristotle, 
he  became,  through  Peter  Lombard  and  Thomas  Aquinas,  a 
name  familiar  to  the  Schoolmen  of  the  West.  He  has  been 
assigned  ‘the  double  honour  of  being  the  last  but  one  of  the 
Fathers  of  the  Eastern  Church,  and  the  greatest  of  her  poets’1. 
At  the  convent  of  St  Sabas,  which  looks  down  on  the  Dead  Sea 
from  a  rocky  ravine  S.E.  of  Jerusalem,  he  composed  those  hymns, 
three  at  least  of  which  have,  in  their  English  render- 

Greek  hymns  .  .  .  .  .  .  .  . 

mgs,  become  widely  known  in  modern  times : — 
‘  Those  eternal  bowers  ’ ;  ‘  Come,  ye  faithful,  raise  the  strain  ’ ; 
and  the  Golden  Canon  of  the  Greek  Church,  ‘’Tis  the  Day  of 
Resurrection’2.  His  adoptive  brother,  Cosmas  of  Jerusalem,  was 
the  most  learned  of  the  Greek  Christian  poets3,  while  to  his 
nephew,  Stephen  of  St  Sabas  (725 — 794),  is  assigned  the  original 
of  the  hymn  ‘Art  thou  weary,  art  thou  languid?’4  All  of  these 
were  preceded  by  Anatolius,  bishop  of  Constantinople  449 — 458, 
the  author  of  the  evening  hymn  of  the  Greek  islanders,  ‘  The  day 
is  past  and  over’5;  by  Romanus,  who  is  regarded  as  ‘the  greatest 
poet  of  the  Byzantine  age’  (< c .  500)6,  and  by  his  imitator  Andreas, 
archbishop  of  Crete  (. c .  650 — 720),  the  author  of  the  Great  Canon 
of  250  stanzas,  and  of  the  hymn  beginning,  ‘Christian!  dost 
thou  see  them  ?  ’ 7  The  monastery  of  Studion  in  Constantinople 
was  the  retreat  of  Joseph  of  Sicily  (fl.  830),  who  inspired  the 
hymn,  ‘  O  happy  band  of  pilgrims  ’ 8,  and  of  Theodore  of  Studion 
(759 — 826),  the  author  of  the  Canon,  which,  for  the  four  centuries 
preceding  the  Dies  Irae ,  remained  the  ‘grandest  Judgment-hymn 
of  the  Church’9.  Among  other  writers  of  hymns  were  the 
historian  Theophanes  (d.  c.  817),  and  Methodius,  patriarch  of 
Constantinople  (843-7),  who  called  the  Synod  which  in  843 
restored  the  worship  of  images-10. 

In  this  second  period,  apart  from  sacred  poetry,  works  in  prose 

1  J.  M.  Neale’s  Hymns  of  the  Eastern  Church ,  p.  33  (ed.  1863). 

2  ib.  38,  55>  57*  3  ib.  64—83. 

4  ib.  84-6.  5  ib.  2 — 12. 

6  Krumbacher,  §  272s,  p.  663. 

7  Neale,  pp.  17,  18. 

8  ib.  122— 152.  9  ib.  p.  112. 

10  ib.  pp.  89,  1 19.  The  Greek  texts  of  some  of  the  above  hymns  are 
printed  in  Moorsom’s  Companion  to  Hymns  Ancient  and  Modern ,  pp.  79 — 912. 


XXII.]  THEOGNOSTUS.  CHRONICLERS  ETC. 


3«S 


Theognostus 


have  been  left  not  only  by  John  of  Damascus,  who  has  been 
already  noticed,  but  also  by  Anastasius  Sinaites  {fl.  640 — 700), 
who  begins  his  principal  work,  the  'OSrjyos  or  ‘  Guide  to  the  true 
way  ’,  with  a  number  of  definitions  clearly  taken  from  Aristotle ; 
and  by  Theodore  of  Studion  (759 — 826),  who  is  still  represented 
by  his  theological  writings  and  by  a  large  collection  of  letters 
which  throw  light  on  the  social  life  of  the  ninth  century  *.  Under 
Leo  the  Armenian  (813 — 820)  the  grammarian  Theognostus  com¬ 
piled  a  work  on  orthography  comprising  more  than 
a  thousand  rules,  mainly  founded  on  Herodian’s 
great  work  on  accentuation.  The  vowels  and  the  diphthongs  which, 
in  Byzantine  Greek,  have  the  same  pronunciation  as  those  vowels, 
are  here  grouped  together,  e  with  at,  and  v  with  01,  the  vowel 
being  called  e  \J/lX6v,  or  v  \pi AoV,  to  distinguish  it  from  the  diph¬ 
thong2.  In  the  first  half  of  the  ninth  century  Michael  Syncellus 
{/l.  829-42)  wrote  a  popular  manual  on  Syntax.  The  other 
prose-writers  of  the  first  half  of  that  century  include  George 
Syncellus  (d.  c.  810),  who  brought  his  Chronicle 
of  the  world  down  to  the  reign  of  Diocletian ; 

Theophanes  (d.  c.  817),  who  carried  it  on  to  his 
own  day,  to  be  succeeded  by  others  who  continued 
the  work  to  901;  and  the  patriarch  Nicephorus 
(d.  829),  who  wrote  a  short  history  of  the  empire  from  602  to  769, 
and  was,  with  Theodore  of  Studion,  one  of  the  main  opponents 
of  the  iconoclastic  emperor  Leo  the  Armenian.  Among  the  em¬ 
peror’s  supporters  was  John  the  Grammarian,  patriarch  from  832 
to  842,  who  to  great  literary  attainments  added  a  wide  knowledge 
of  science  which  led  to  his  being  accused  by  the  ignorant  of 
studying  magic3.  But,  on  the  whole,  the  iconoclastic  age  was 
singularly  barren  in  secular  learning. 

It  was,  however,  during  the  two  centuries  described  as  the 
dark  age  of  secular  literature  at  Constantinople 
that  the  light  of  Greek  learning  spread  eastwards  among  the 
to  Syria  and  Arabia.  The  philosophy  of  Aristotle  Arabians3”*1 
had  already  found  acceptance,  in  the  fifth  century, 
among  the  Syrians  of  Edessa,  and,  about  the  middle  of  that 


Chroniclers 
etc. ;  George 
Syncellus, 
Theophanes, 
Nicephorus 


1  Migne,  xcix. 

3  Finlay,  ii  117,  143,  207  f. 

S. 


2  Krumbacher,  §  245s;  cp.  supra  p.  90. 


25 


386 


THE  BYZANTINE  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


century,  Syriac  commentaries  on  the  De  Interpretatione ,  the 
Analytica  Prior  a  and  the  Sophistici  Elenchi  had  been  produced 
by  Probus.  The  School  of  Edessa,  closed  by  Zeno  in  489  owing 
to  its  sympathy  with  Nestorianism,  was  succeeded  by  that  at 
Nisibis1,  which  attracted  the  notice  of  Cassiodorus,  and  that 
at  Gandisapora2  (between  Susa  and  Ecbatana),  which  sent  forth 
Syrian  students  to  instruct  the  Arabians  in  philosophy  and 
medicine  respectively.  In  the  sixth  century  works  of  Aristotle 
had  been  translated  into  Syriac  by  Sergius  of  Resaina3 ;  and,  in 
the  seventh,  the  De  Interpretatione ,  Categories  and  Analytics  were 
produced  in  the  same  language,  together  with  a  Life  of  Aristotle, 
by  Jacob,  bishop  of  Edessa  (pi.  651 — 719).  Under  the  rule  of 
the  Abbasidae  (which  lasted  from  750  to  1258,  and  whose  capital 
of  Bagdad  was  founded  in  762)  the  medical  science  of  the  Greeks 
became  known  to  the  Arabs  through  the  medium  of  the  Syrians ; 
and,  in  the  reign  of  the  son  of  Harun-al-Raschid,  the  calif  Alma- 
mun  (813 — 833),  whose  request  for  the  temporary  use  of  the 
services  of  Leo  the  mathematician  was  resolutely  refused  by 
the  emperor  Theophilus  (c.  830) 4,  philosophical  works  were  trans¬ 
lated  by  Syrian  Christians  from  Greek  into  Syriac,  and  from 
Syriac  into  Arabic.  It  was  under  Almamun  that  Aristotle  was 
first  translated  into  Arabic  under  the  direction  of  Ibn  al  Batrik 
(‘Son  of  the  Patriarch’).  The  Nestorian  Honein  Ibn  Ishak, 
or  Johannitius  (d.  876),  who  was  familiar  with  Syriac,  Arabic 
and  Greek,  presided  over  a  school  of  interpreters  at  Bagdad ; 
and  (besides  versions  of  Plato,  Hippocrates  and  Galen)5  Greek 
commentaries  on  Aristotle  were,  in  his  name,  translated  by  his 
sons  and  his  disciples  into  Syriac  and  Arabic.  In  the  tenth 
century  new  translations  of  Aristotle,  Theophrastus,  Alexander 
of  Aphrodisias,  Themistius,  Syrianus,  Ammonius  etc  were  pro¬ 
duced  by  the  Nestorian  Syrians.  Of  the  Arabian  philosophers 
in  the  East  the  most  important  were  Alkendi  of  Basra  (d.  c.  870), 

1  /cat  irtdov  et5a  Kal  dcrrea  iravra  TSiaifiLv  [r’],  |  'Etixppa.T'qv  Stands. 

Inscr.  in  Ramsay’s  Cities  etc.  of  Phrygia ,  ii  723.  Cp.  Lightfoot’s  Ignatius , 
i  497.  See  p.  249  supi'a. 

2  Gondi  Sapor  in  Gibbon,  c.  42  (iv  361  Bury). 

3  A.  Baumstark,  Lucubr.  Syro-Graecae>  358 — 438. 

4  Cedrenus,  p.  549 ;  Gibbon,  c.  52  (vi  34  Bury).  5  ib.  vi  29  n. 


XXII.] 


ARISTOTLE  IN  SYRIA  AND  ARABIA. 


387 


who  commented  on  the  logical  writings  of  Aristotle ;  Alfarabi  of 
Bagdad  (d.  950),  who  in  logic  followed  Aristotle  unreservedly, 
and  accepted  the  Neo-Platonic  doctrine  of  emanation;  Avicenna 
(980 — 1037),  who  taught  in  Ispahan,  combining  instruction  in 
medicine  with  the  exposition  of  Aristotle,  analysing  the  Organon 
and  writing  commentaries  on  the  De  Anima  and  De  Cae/o,  and 
on  the  Physics  and  Metaphysics ;  and  Algazel  (1059 — mi),  who 
began  his  teaching  at  Bagdad  and  opposed  (on  religious  grounds) 
the  doctrines  of  Aristotle  \  The  Arabic  translations  of  Aristotle 
passed  from  the  East  to  the  Arabian  dominions  in  the  West, 
Spain  having  been  conquered  by  the  Arabs  early  in  the  eighth 
century.  The  study  of  Aristotle  in  Spain  in  the  twelfth  century, 
and  the  influence  of  the  Latin  translations  of  the  Arabic  versions 
of  Aristotle,  is  reserved  for  our  review  of  the  Middle  Ages  in 
the  West  (c.  xxx). 

At  the  beginning  of  the  two  centuries  which  are  regarded  as 
the  darkest  portion  of  the  Byzantine  age,  Leo  the  ‘  Isaurian  ’, 
who  repelled  the  last  great  effort  of  the  Saracens  to  destroy 
Constantinople  and  ably  reformed  the  military  defences  and  the 
civil  administration  of  the  empire,  did  no  service  whatsoever  to 
the  cause  of  learning.  He  actually  disendowed  the  imperial 
academy  in  the  quarter  between  the  palace  walls  and  Santa 
Sophia,  and  ejected  the  Ecumenical  Doctor  at  its  head  and  the  12 
learned  men  who  assisted  him  in  giving  instruction  in  arts  and 
theology1 2.  He  is  even  stated  by  Zonaras,  and  by  George  the 
Monk,  to  have  burnt  the  academy  with  its  library  of  33,000 
volumes  of  sacred  and  secular  literature, — an  act  which  (con¬ 
sidering  the  position  of  the  building)  would  have  been  so  indiscreet 
as  to  be  absolutely  incredible.  It  is  probable,  however,  that  the 
schools  of  theology  were  alone  suppressed,  as  we  know  that 

1 

1  Ueberweg’s  Grundriss,  ed.  8,  ii  §28  (pp.  402 — 417  of  History  of  Philosophy, 
E.  trans.)  with  the  literature  quoted  there,  and  in  Hiibner,  §  35,  and  Krum- 
bacher,  p.  10982  f,  esp.  J.  G.  Wenrich,  De  auctorum  Graecorum  versionibus 
et  commentariis  Syriacis  Arabicis  Ar?nenicis  Persicisque  (1842),  J.  Lippert’s 
Studien  (1894),  and  articles  by  M.  Steinschneider ;  also  A.  Baumstark, 
Aristoteles  bei  den  Syrern  vom  v — viii  Jahrhundert  (1900).  Cp.  Haureau, 
Histoire  de  la  Philosophie  Scolastique ,  ed.  2,  11  i  15 — 29. 

2  Finlay,  ii  44 ;  Bury,  ii  433  f. 


388 


THE  BYZANTINE  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Period  III, 

850—1350 


learned  divines  such  as  Theodore  of  Studion  and  the  patriarch 
Nicephorus  ‘received  an  excellent  secular  education  in  grammar, 
language,  science  and  philosophy’1.  Towards  the  end  of  this  dark 
period,  Leo  the  Byzantine  received  permission  from  Theophilus 
(829 — 42)  to  teach  in  public;  under  his  successor,  Caesar  Bardas, 
who  ruled  on  behalf  of  Michael  the  Drunkard,  iconoclasm  was 
abolished  (through  the  influence  of  Michael’s  mother,  Theodora), 
and  the  university  of  Constantinople  restored.  In  857  the 
patriarch  Ignatius,  a  man  of  the  highest  integrity 
whose  father  (Michael  I)  and  grandfather  (Nice¬ 
phorus  I)  had  filled  the  imperial  throne,  was 
banished  ;  and  a  man  of  equal  integrity  and  greater  learning, 
Photius,  whose  brother  had  married  the  sister  of  the  empress 
Theodora,  and  whose  grand-uncle  Tarasius  had  been  patriarch 
in  his  day,  was,  like  Tarasius,  raised  as  a  layman  from  the  position 
of  chief  Secretary  of  State  to  that  of  the  head  of  the  Eastern 
Church2.  The  appointment  of  Photius  led  to  a  serious  conflict 
with  the  papacy  ;  and  Ignatius  was  restored  in  863.  Basil  I 
(867 — 886),  the  founder  of  the  Macedonian  dynasty,  appointed 
Photius  tutor  to  the  emperor’s  son,  afterwards  known  as  Leo  the 
Wise;  and  the  two  sets  of  moral  exhortations,  which  have  come 
down  to  us  under  the  name  of  Basil  and  are  founded  largely  on 
the  work  on  the  duties  of  princes  dedicated  by  Agapetus  to 
Justinian,  and  also  (like  Photius’  letter3  to  the  king  of  the 
Bulgarians)  on  the  moral  precepts  of  Isocrates,  may  possibly 
have  been  really  composed  by  Photius4.  On  the  death  of  Ignatius 
in  878,  Photius  was  reinstated  by  Basil,  to  be  exiled  by  his  pupil, 
Leo  the  Wise,  in  886,  and  to  die  in  exile  in  891. 

Photius,  who  was  born  c.  820-7,  had  scarcely  completed  his 
own  education  when  he  was  seized  by  his  life-long 
passion  for  instructing  others.  He  displayed  an 
almost  pedantic  partiality  for  correcting  the  grammatical  mistakes 
of  his  friends,  and  this  passion  pursued  him  not  only  during  his 
tenure  of  the  patriarchate,  but  even  in  the  time  of  his  exile5. 

1  Bury,  ii  435,  519.  2  Finlay,  ii  175  f. 

3  Ep.  6,  pp.  224-48,  ed.  Valettas. 

4  Krumbacher,  §  1912. 

e.g.  Ep.  236  Valettas,  ...otfre  <ro\oud£ovcn. . .avv-qd^s  el/xl  ireldeadai. 


Photius 


XXII.] 


PHOTIUS. 


389 


His  house  was  the  constant  resort  of  eager  youths  to  whom  he 
interpreted  the  Categories  of  Aristotle,  and  the  controversies 
respecting  genera  and  species ,  and  £  mind  ’  and  1  matter  ’  \  He 
composed  text-books  of  dialectic,  and  discussed  with  his  pupils 
points  of  theology  and  scholarship.  Even  when  he  had  risen 
to  high  office,  his  activity  as  a  teacher  did  not  cease.  His  house 
continued  to  be  frequented  by  the  most  inquisitive  members  of 
the  intellectual  society  of  the  capital2.  Books  were  read  aloud 
in  the  master’s  presence  and  were  criticised  by  the  master  himself, 
who  stated  his  opinion  on  their  substance  and  their  form.  From 
all  who  listened  to  his  lectures  he  exacted  the  most  implicit 
submission,  even  demanding  written  promises  of  adhesion  to  his 
views3.  The  wide  range  of  his  attainments  was  admitted  even 
by  his  opponents ;  and,  in  his  many-sided  erudition,  he  not  only 
surpassed  his  contemporaries,  but  even  rivalled  the  most  learned 
of  the  ancients.  In  his  philosophical  studies  he  showed  a  special 
partiality  for  Aristotle ;  while  he  had  less  capacity  for  appreciating 
Plato,  and  was  indeed  strongly  opposed  to  the  Platonic  doctrine 
of  Ideas 4.  In  his  dialectical  treatises  he  generally  followed 
the  methods  adopted  by  Porphyry,  Ammonius  and  John  of 
Damascus 5. 

The  two  works  of  Photius  which  are  of  special  importance 
in  the  history  of  Scholarship,  are  (1)  his  Bibliotheca  and  (2)  his 
Lexicon.  In  dedicating  his  Bibliotheca  or  Myriobiblon  to  his 
brother  Tarasius,  he  states  that  it  was  written  in  compliance  with 
his  brother’s  request  for  information  as  to  the  books  which  had 
been  read  aloud  and  discussed  in  the  circle  of  Photius  during 
his  brother’s  absence.  Photius  himself  was  at  the  time  preparing 
for  his  journey  as  envoy  to  the  Assyrian  court,  i.e.  to  the  seat  of 
the  calif  at  Bagdad.  From  the  letter  of  dedication  it  has  been 
sometimes  inferred  that  this  vast  work  was  compiled  during  the 


1  Quaest.  Amphil.  77  c.  1  (Hergenrother,  iii  342). 

2  Bp'  3,  ad  Papain  Nicolaum  (p.  149  Valettas),  oIkoi...ia£vovti  xaPL€(T<ja 
tCov  t]8ovu>u  ir€pieTr\^K€TO  rtppis,  t&v  pLavdav6vTiov  opCovri  top  itSpop,  tt)p  airovdrjp 
tup  iirepuruprup,  t-tjp  rpl^rjp  tup  TrpocrdiaXeyo/xtpup  ktX.  Cp.  Hergenrother,  i 

322-35- 

3  Hergenrother,  i  335,  note  118. 

4  Hergenrother,  iii  342.  5  Krumbacher,  §  2162. 


390 


THE  BYZANTINE  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


embassy  itself 1 ;  but,  whatever  ambiguity  there  may  be  in  the 
dedication,  the  most  natural  interpretation  of  the  conclusion  is 
that  it  was  completed  before  the  author  departed  for  Assyria2. 
The  work,  which  must  have  been  finished  before  857  b.c.,  while 
the  author  was  still  a  layman,  consists  of  280  chapters,  corre¬ 
sponding  to  the  number  of  separate  volumes  ( codices )  read  and 
reviewed,  and  it  fills  altogether  545  quarto  pages  in  double 
columns  in  Bekker’s  edition.  Some  of  these  reviews  contain 
lengthy  extracts,  with  criticisms  on  the  style  or  subject-matter. 
Among  the  prose  writings  are  the  works  of  theologians,  historians, 
orators  and  rhetoricians,  philosophers,  grammarians  and  lexi¬ 
cographers,  physicists  and  physicians,  and  even  romances,  acts 
of  councils,  and  lives  of  saints  and  martyrs.  Next  to  the  theo¬ 
logians,  the  historians  fill  the  largest  space ;  and,  among  the 
historical  writings  here  preserved  for  posterity,  are  important 
notices  of,  or  extracts  from,  Hecataeus,  Ctesias,  Theopompus, 
Diodorus  Siculus,  Memnon  of  Heraclea,  Arrian,  Phlegon  of  Tralles, 
and  the  chronologist  Julius  Africanus,  besides  later  historians 
such  as  Olympiodorus  of  Thebes,  Nonnosus  of  Byzantium,  and 
Candidus  the  Isaurian.  We  are  also  supplied  with  excerpts  from 
the  Chrestomathies  of  Proclus  and  Helladius,  and  brief  reviews  of 
the  lexicon  of  the  latter,  as  well  as  similar  works  by  Diogenianus, 
and  the  Atticists  Aelius  Dionysius,  Pausanias  and  Phrynichus. 
The  author  is  particularly  happy  in  his  literary  criticisms.  He 
notes  the  charm  of  Herodotus,  the  monotonously  balanced  clauses 
of  Isocrates,  the  clear,  simple  and  pleasant  style  of  Ctesias. 
Josephus  in  his  view  is  rich  in  argument,  and  in  sententiousness 
and  pathos ;  Appian,  terse  and  plain ;  and  Arrian,  masterly  in 
his  capacity  for  succinct  narration.  Lucian  spends  all  his  pains 
on  producing  a  prose  comedy  in  a  style  that  is  brilliant  and 
classical.  Phrynichus  has  collected  excellent  linguistic  materials 

1  e.g.  Nicolai  in  Brockhaus,  Encykl.  part  87  p.  359;  Saintsbury,  i  176. 
Gibbon,  c.  53  (vi  105  Bury)  is  rather  vague. 

2  p.  545,  el  p.kv  Tatirriv  ttjv  npeafidav  diavdovra  ( diavoovvra  MS)  rb  KOLvbv 
Kal  dvdpwmvov  KaraXafioc  tAos,  ^Xets  TV  oXtt]<tlv  ri) s  eXirldos  ob  Siap.apTOvcrav . . . 
el  S'  eiceidep  Tjp.as  dvaauodmevov  rb  Qelbv  re  Kal  (pCkavdpuTrov  vevp.a  els  tt)v 
aXXrjXiov  6eav...diroKaTaaT7]<rei  (he  will  send  his  brother  a  fresh  series  of 
reviews). 


XXII.] 


PHOTIUS. 


391 


for  the  use  of  others,  without  making  any  use  of  them  himself. 
Philostratus  is  lucid  and  graceful ;  Synesius  has  dignity  of  phrase, 
but  is  apt  to  become  over-poetical,  though  his  Letters  are  full 
of  charm  ;  Cyril  of  Alexandria  writes  in  a  poetical  variety  of 
prose ;  Libanius  is  a  canon  and  standard  of  Attic  style.  Lastly, 
in  writing  the  earliest  extant  review  of  any  novel,  the  critic 
describes  the  Aethiopica  of  Heliodorus  as  abounding  in  pathetic 
situations  and  hairbreadth  escapes1.  The  work,  as  a  whole,  is 
such  as  to  prove,  in  the  language  of  Gibbon,  that  £no  art  or 
science,  except  poetry,  was  foreign  to  this  universal  scholar,  who 
was  deep  in  thought,  indefatigable  in  reading  and  eloquent  in 
diction  ’ 2. 

In  his  Lexicon  (Xe^ecoi/  avvayuiyrj),  which  belongs  to  a  later 
date  than  the  Bibliotheca ,  he  makes  use  of  excerpts  from  the 
vocabularies  of  Aelius  Dionysius  and  Pausanias,  both  of  them 
partly  founded  on  Diogenianus ;  he  also  uses  the  abridged  Harpo- 
cration,  with  the  Platonic  lexicons  of  Timaeus  and  Boethus3. 
For  Homeric  words  he  depends  on  Pseudo-Apion,  Heliodorus 
and  Apollonius.  This  Lexicon  has  been  preserved  solely  in  the 
codex  Galeanus  ( c .  1200),  formerly  in  the  possession  of  Dr  Thomas 
Gale  (d.  1702),  and  now  in  the  Library  of  Trinity  College,  Cam¬ 
bridge.  It  was  twice  transcribed  by  Porson,  and  published  from 
his  second  transcript  by  Dobree  (1822)4.  The  explanations  of 
certain  words  given  by  Photius  in  the  learned  Letters  addressed 
during  his  first  exile  (867-77)  to  Amphilochus,  bishop  of  Cyzicus, 
agree  with  those  of  the  Lexicon 5. 

The  above  was  not  the  only  Lexicon  executed  under  the 
superintendance  of  Photius.  In  the  Etymologicum  Florentinum 6, 
preserved  in  a  ms  of  cent,  x,  and  now  called  the  Etymologicum 
genuinum ,  Photius  is  cited  in  five  passages,  once  in  the  form 
ovtojs  eyw,  <£omos  6  iraTpiapyr]^.  But  (curiously  enough)  he  is 

1  Cp.  Saintsbury,  i  176 — 183. 

2  c.  53  (vi  104  Bury).  3  Naber’s  Proleg. 

4  Previously  edited  (from  another  transcript)  by  Hermann  (1808)  ;  and 
since,  by  Naber  (1864-5). 

5  Hergenrother,  iii  10. 

6  Printed  (with  Et.  parvum)  in  E.  Miller’s  Melanges  (1868),  pp.  11 — 340. 

7  Reitzenstein’s  Etymologika  (summarised  in  Berl.  Phil.  Woch.  1898, 
p.  902  f),  pp.  58 — 60  f. 


392 


THE  BYZANTINE  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


not  named  in  the  numerous  extracts  derived  from  his  earlier 
Lexico?i  and  described  as  taken  Ik  tov  prjTopLKov.  In  his  Amphi- 
lochian  Questiojis  (13 1),  he  quotes  a  passage  on  the  magnet  which 
we  find  in  the  Etymologicum ,  and  which  ultimately  comes  from 
the  Chrestomathy  of  Helladius  quoted  by  Photius  in  the  Biblio¬ 
theca  (p.  529)1.  At  the  end  of  one  of  the  articles  of  the  Ety¬ 
mologicum  the  poor  scholar  who  originally  transcribed  the  work 
laments  his  poverty  and  describes  himself  as  impelled  by  the 
love  of  language  (ru>  tw v  \6ywv  tfpam)  to  spend  sleepless  nights 
over  his  task,  in  the  hope  of  deriving  great  advantage  from  it 
and  leaving  to  posterity  something  worthy  of  remembrance 2. 
The  authorities  here  quoted  include  Methodius,  Orus  and  Orion, 
Zenobius  (the  commentator  on  Apollonius),  Herodian,  Choero- 
boscus,  Theognostus  (fl.  820),  and  many  scholia  on  the  ancient 
poets.  It  would  appear  that  the  explanations  of  Homeric  words 
current  early  in  the  sixth  century  were  supplemented  from  Choero- 
boscus  and  reduced  to  a  lexicographical  form ;  that  interpolations 
were  then  introduced,  and  that,  in  this  last  stage,  the  work  was 
taken  up  by  Photius,  who  thus  became  the  founder  of  the  Greek 
Etymological  Lexicons.  The  Etymologicum  ge?iuinum  was  followed 
by  the  Etymologicum  parvum ,  which  was  also  drawn  up  under  the 
orders  of  Photius,  and,  according  to  the  statement  at  its  close, 
was  completed  on  Sunday  13  May,  the  date  of  ‘the  opening  of 
the  great  church’  (of  Santa  Sophia)  in  a  year  identified  as  882, 
when  the  church  was  repaired  and  the  western  apse  rebuilt  by 
the  emperor  Basil  the  Macedonian 3.  Even  on  the  day  of  the 
opening  of  his  great  cathedral  church,  the  patriarch  was  doubtless 
not  uninterested  in  the  completion  of  the  least  of  his  three 
Lexicons. 

His  extant  Letters  (260  in  number)  are  mainly  on  points 
of  dogmatic  theology  or  exegesis,  though  many  of  them  deal 
with  exhortation  and  admonition,  condolence  or  reproof.  In  a 
letter  addressed,  during  his  exile,  to  the  emperor  Basil  I,  he 
bitterly  complains  that  he  has  even  been  deprived  of  the  use 
of  his  books 4.  In  another  he  expresses  his  surprise  that  the 
bishop  of  Nicomedeia  regards  St  Peter’s  use  of  lyKop-fiMo-aadt 

1  ib.  63-5.  2  ib.  66.  3  ib.  69. 

4  P-  531  e(b  Valettas,  quoted  on  p.  377. 


XXII.] 


PHOTIUS. 


393 


(i  Pet.  v  5)  as  a  barbarism,  and  justifies  it  from  Epicharmus  and 
Apollodorus  of  Carystus1.  In  a  third,  he  'writes  to  the  bishop 
of  Cyzicus,  eulogising  the  epistles  of  Plato  in  preference  to  those 
of  Demosthenes  and  Aristotle,  and  recommending  his  corre¬ 
spondent  to  study  those  ‘  ascribed  to  Phalaris,  tyrant  of  Acragas  ’, 
and  those  of  Brutus  and  of  the  royal  philosopher  (probably 
M.  Aurelius)  and  Libanius,  together  with  those  of  Basil,  Gregory 
Nazianzen,  and  Isidore2.  He  tells  the  bishop  of  Laodicea  to 
cultivate  a  pure  Attic  style3;  and,  lastly,  he  corrects  a  composition 
by  the  monk  and  philosopher,  Nicephorus,  and  offers  to  make 
a  collection  of  rhetorical  works  on  his  behalf,  as  soon  as  he  is 
definitely  informed  as  to  the  books  which  he  requires4.  The 
second  part  of  his  long  letter  to  Michael,  king  of  the  Bulgarians 
(Efi.  6),  is  borrowed  largely  from  the  Nicocles  of  Isocrates.  The 
style  of  his  Letters  varies  from  the  extreme  of  an  excessive 
redundancy  to  that  of  a  most  laconic  terseness.  One  of  the 
most  beautiful  passages  in  his  longer  letters  is  that  in  the  first 
letter  to  Pope  Nicholas  (861),  where  he  describes  the  loss  of 
a  life  of  peaceful  calm  which  befell  him  on  his  ceasing  to  be 
a  layman,  and  regretfully  dwells  on  the  happiness  of  his  home 
in  the  days  when  he  was  surrounded  by  eager  inquirers  after 
learning  by  whom  he  was  always  welcomed  on  his  return  from 
court 5. 

Among  the  minor  contemporaries  of  Photius  were  Cometas, 
a  professor  of  Grammar  (863),  who  prepared  a  recension  of 
Homer  which  is  the  theme  of  two  epigrams  written  by  himself6; 
and  Ignatius,  the  ‘master  of  the  grammarians’  (870 — 880),  who 
describes  himself  as  the  restorer  of  Grammar : — 

’lyva tios  rdSe  revt-eu,  6s  i s  <paos  ijyaye  TixvVv 
ypa/JL/iarLKT/u,  XrjOyjs  Kevdonlurjv  TreXayei7. 

1  P-  541- 

2  p.  545.  It  is  possibly  owing  to  the  influence  of  Photius  that  the  letters 
of  ‘  Phalaris  ’  and  Brutus  have  been  preserved  in  so  many  mss  (Hergenrother, 
iii  230). 

3  P-  547-  4  P-  55T* 

5  p.  149  Valettas,  d-iwe<rou  dpriviKTjs  farjs,  i^iirecrov  yaXrjvris  yXvKdas  ktX. 

On  Photius,  cp.  Milman’s  Latin  Christianity ,  iii  156 — 170;  Hergenrother’s 
Photius ,  1867-9;  Krumbacher,  §  2t62. 

6  A  nth.  Pal.  xv  37,  38. 


7  ib.  39.  Krumbacher,  p.  7202. 


394 


THE  BYZANTINE  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


But  the  waves  of  oblivion  have  rolled  over  the  Grammar  of 
Ignatius,  as  well  as  the  Homeric  recension  of  Cometas. 

The  absence  of  all  notice  of  the  classical  Greek  Poets  in 
the  Bibliotheca  of  Photius  has  often  been  observed.  Possibly 
its  learned  author  was  more  partial  to  prose.  His  pupil,  Leo  the 
philosopher,  whom  Caesar  Bardas  appointed  Professor  of  Mathe¬ 
matics  at  the  University  of  Constantinople,  describes  himself  as 
bidding  farewell  to  the  Muses,  as  soon  as  he  becomes  a  pupil 
of  Photius  in  the  ‘diviner  lore’  of  rhetoric1.  The  prose  of  Photius 
is  certainly  better  than  his  scanty  contributions  to  sacred  verse ; 
and,  apart  from  this,  his  omission  of  poetry  in  a  work  professing 
to  record  only  a  portion  of  his  reading  in  his  maturer  years  is  quite 
consistent  with  his  having  studied  the  usual  classical  poets  in 
the  days  of  his  youth.  In  the  ninth  century  the  authors  studied 
at  school,  and  familiar  to  the  general  public  in 
th^cfassfcs.  Constantinople,  included  Homer,  Hesiod,  Pindar ; 

certain  select  plays  of  Aeschylus  ( Prometheus , 
Septem,  Persae),  Sophocles  (Ajax,  Electra ,  Oedipus  Tyr annus ), 
and  Euripides  (Hecuba,  Orestes,  Phoenissae,  and,  in  the  second 
degree,  Alcestis,  Andromache,  Hippolytus,  Medea,  Rhesus,  Troades)2-, 
also  Aristophanes  (beginning  with  the  Plutus),  Theocritus,  Lyco- 
phron  and  Dionysius  Periegetes.  The  prose  authors  principally 
studied  were  Thucydides,  parts  of  Plato  and  Demosthenes,  also 
Aristotle,  Plutarch’s  Lives,  and  especially  Lucian,  who  is  often 
imitated  in  the  Byzantine  age3.  Among  rhetoricians,  the  favourite 
authors  were  Dion  Chrysostom,  Aristides,  Themistius  and  Libanius; 
among  novelists,  Achilles  Tatius  and  Heliodorus.  The  geographer 
Strabo  is  hardly  noticed  before  the  Byzantine  age.  In  sacred 
literature,  the  books  chiefly  read  were,  apart  from  the  Scriptures, 
certain  of  the  Greek  Fathers,  such  as  Basil,  Gregory  of  Nazianzus 
and  of  Nyssa,  Chrysostom,  Johannes  Climax  (525 — 600,  author 
of  a  devotional  work  on  the  Scala  Paradisi  ending  with  the 
Liber  ad  Pastorem),  and  John  of  Damascus,  together  with  lives 


1  Anth.  Gr.,  Appendix  iii  255. 

2  The  Kuj\ofj.€Tpia  of  Eugenius  ( Jl .  500)  was  confined  to  15  plays  of  the 
three  tragic  poets.  Cp.  Bernhardy,  Gr.  Litt.  i  694“*;  and  Wilamowitz,  Eur. 
Her.  i  1951. 

3  e.g.  in  the  Philopatris  {c.  602-10),  Timarion  (c.  1150)  and  Mazaris 
(c.  1416). 


XXII.]  STUDY  OF  THE  CLASSICS.  ARETHAS. 


395 


of  saints  and  martyrs1.  The  predominance  of  sacred  literature 
is  obvious  in  the  catalogues  of  the  great  Greek  libraries,  such 
as  those  on  Mount  Athos2.  But  the  fact  that  so  large  a  body 
of  secular  literature  has  been  preserved  at  all  is  mainly  due  to 
the  learning  and  enlightenment  of  eminent  ecclesiastics  such  as 
Photius  and  Arethas. 

Arethas  was  one  of  the  many  distinguished  pupils  of  Photius. 
He  was  born  at  Patrae  about  860-5,  was  Arch-  Areth 
bishop  of  Caesarea  in  Cappadocia  in  or  before  907, 
and  died  in  or  after  932  (the  date  of  a  Moscow  ms  copied  on  his 
behalf).  Although  his  residence  in  Cappadocia  kept  him  far 
removed  from  the  chief  centres  of  learning,  he  devoted  himself 
with  remarkable  energy  to  the  collection  of  classical  as  well  as 
ecclesiastical  writings,  and  to  commenting  on  the  same.  Certain 
of  his  annotations  on  Plato3,  Dion  Chrysostom,  Lucian,  Tatian, 
Athenagoras,  Clement  of  Alexandria,  and  Eusebius  are  still  extant; 
and  he  happens  to  be  the  author  of  three  indifferent  epigrams 
in  the  Palatine  Anthology  (xv  32-4).  His  interest  in  classical 
literature  is  attested  by  important  mss  copied  under  his  orders 
and  at  his  own  expense.  Among  these  are  mss  of  Euclid  (888)  ; 
the  Apologists,  Clemens  Alexandrinus4,  Eusebius  (914);  Aristides 
(9 1 7)  ^  possibly  also  of  Dion  Chrysostom,  and  certainly  of  Plato 
(895 )5.  Arethas  was  one  of  the  earliest  commentators  on  the 
Apocalypse,  and  his  own  copy  of  Plato  found  its  way  to  the 
monastery  at  Patmos.  This  famous  ms  was  brought  from  Patmos 
to  Cambridge  by  the  traveller,  Dr  Edward  Daniel  Clarke,  after¬ 
wards  Professor  of  Mineralogy  in  that  University.  It  is  now  in 
the  Bodleian  at  Oxford,  and  is  known  as  the  codex  Bodleianus 
Clarkianus  39.  At  the  end  of  the  volume  it  bears  an  inscription 
stating  that  it  was  ‘written  by  John  the  calligraphist,  for  Arethas, 
Deacon  of  Patrae,  in  the  month  of  November  895  \  In  October 
1801,  when  Clarke  discovered  the  ms  in  the  midst  of  a  disordered 
heap  of  volumes  lying  on  the  floor  of  the  Library  at  Patmos, 

1  Krumbacher,  §  2152,  p.  505. 

2  ed.  Lambros  (Camb.  Univ.  Press),  2  vols.,  1895  f. 

3  M.  Schanz  in  Philol.  34  (1874)  374  f ;  E.  H.  Gifford  in  Class.  Rev. 
1902,  p.  16;  J.  Burnet,  id.  p.  276. 

4  Facsimile  on  p.  326. 


5  Facsimile  on  p.  376. 


396 


THE  BYZANTINE  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


‘  the  cover  was  full  of  worms,  and  falling  to  pieces  ’  \  Its  value 
was  fully  appreciated  by  Porson  at  Cambridge  (in  1802)1  2  and 
by  Gaisford  at  Oxford  (1812).  Its  readings  were  published  by 
the  latter  in  1820,  and  it  has  since  been  reproduced  in  facsimile 
(1898  f).  The  Oxford  ms  of  Euclid  (888),  which,  like  that  of 
Plato,  was  acquired  by  Arethas  while  he  was  still  a  deacon  at 
Patrae,  is  almost  the  earliest  dated  example  of  the  Greek  minuscule 
writing  of  the  Middle  Ages3. 

The  patriarch  Photius  had  been  finally  deposed  on  the  ac¬ 
cession  of  his  former  pupil  Leo  the  Wise  (886).  The  next  eighty 
years  were  entirely  taken  up  with  the  reigns  of  the  son  and  the 
grandson  of  Basil  the  Macedonian,  Leo  the  Wise  and  Constantine 
Porphyrogenitus,  both  of  whom  were  chiefly  dis- 
CorTstantineVii  tinguished  for  their  literary  productions.  Leo 
(886 — 91 1)  was  the  author  of  certain  homilies  and 
epigrams,  with  a  book  of  oracles  which  gained  him  the  name 
of  ‘the  Wise’4.  The  treatise  on  Tactics  bearing  his  name  was 
probably  written  by  Leo  the  ‘  Isaurian  ’ 5.  Constantine  Porphyro¬ 
genitus,  so  called  because  he  was  born  in  the  porphyry  chamber 
in  the  imperial  palace,  was  kept  in  the  background  from  the  age 
of  seven  to  that  of  forty  (912 — 945),  and  consoled  himself  mean¬ 
while  by  writing  books  and  painting  pictures6.  He  produced 
a  biography  of  Basil  I,  treatises  on  the  military  subdivisions  and 
the  administration  of  the  empire 7,  and  a  vast  work  on  the  cere¬ 
monies  of  the  court8.  He  also  rendered  considerable  service 
to  Greek  literature  by  organising  the  compilation  of  a  series  of 
encyclopaedias  of  History,  as  well  as  Agriculture  and  Medicine. 
The  encyclopaedia  of  History  was  drawn  up  under  53  headings, 
such  as  On  Embassies9,  Virtues  and  Vices,  Conspiracies,  Strata¬ 
gems  and  Military  Harangues.  It  included  numerous  extracts 

1  Clarke’s  Travels,  vi  46  (ed.  4,  1818). 

2  Luard’s  Correspondence  of  Porson,  p.  80. 

3  E.  M.  Thompson.  Palaeography ,  p.  163.  On  Arethas,  cp.  Krumbacher, 
§  2172,  and  E.  Maass  in  Melanges  Graux,  pp.  749-66. 

4  Krumbacher,  pp.  168,  628,  72 12.  5  id.  p.  636s. 

6  Gibbon,  c.  48  (v  208  f  Bury)  and  c.  53  (vi  62-6). 

7  Migne,  cxiii  63 — 422.  8  id.  cxii  74 — 1416. 

9  id.  cxiii  605 — 652. 


XXII.] 


THE  ANTHOLOGY  OF  CEPHALAS. 


397 


from  earlier  historians,  beginning  with  Herodotus  and  ending  with 
Theophylact  Simocattes.  The  most  important  of  these  extracts 
are  those  from  Polybius.  They  were  published  by  Fulvius  Ursinus 
at  Antwerp  in  1582  under  the  title  Selecta  de  Legationibus ,  and, 
with  additions  by  Hoeschel,  in  1603.  Further  extracts  from 
Polybius  and  others  were  included  in  the  Excerpta  de  Virtiitibus  et 
Vitiis  published  by  Valesius  (1634)  from  a  ms  found  in  Cyprus 
and  acquired  by  Peirescius  (1580 — 1637),  and  hence  known  as 
the  Excerpta  Peiresciana.  A  third  series  of  extracts  was  included 
in  the  Excerpta  de  Sententiis,  published  by  Mai  in  1827 1. 

To  the  early  part  of  the  tenth  century  we  may  ascribe  the 
Greek  Anthology  compiled  by  Constantine  Cepha-  The  Antho 
las,  who  held  office  at  the  Byzantine  court  in  917.  logy  of 
He  included  in  his  collection  the  earlier  Anthologies  CePhalas 
of  Meleager,  Philippus  and  Agathias,  whose  prefatory  poems  he 
preserves  in  his  fourth  book,  and  whose  epigrams  may  be  found 
in  books  v — vii  and  ix — xi.  The  Anthology  of  Cephalas  consists 
in  all  of  xv  books,  contained  in  a  Codex  Palatinus  of  century  xi, 
so  called  because  it  belonged  to  the  Library  of  the  Palatinate 
at  Heidelberg.  In  1623,  on  the  capture  of  Heidelberg  by  Tilly, 
this  ms  was  among  the  3500  presented  to  the  Pope  and  trans¬ 
ported  to  the  Vatican.  It  was  divided  into  two  parts,  and  after 
the  treaty  of  Tolentino  in  1797  was  taken  to  Paris  (with  37  other 
Palatine  mss)  as  part  of  the  Italian  spoils  of  Napoleon  Bonaparte. 
After  the  Peace  of  Paris  (1815)  the  first  part,  consisting  of 
Books  i — xii,  was  (with  the  37  other  mss)  restored  to  Heidelberg, 
which  also  possesses  a  photographic  facsimile  of  the  48  leaves 
still  retained  in  Paris.  The  ms  was  first  made  known  to  scholars 
by  Salmasius,  who  transcribed  the  whole  at  Heidelberg  in  1607. 
Up  to  that  time  the  Greek  Anthology  had  only  been  known  in 
the  form  of  the  Anthologia  Planudea  (cent,  xiv),  which  will  be 
noticed  in  the  sequel  (p.  418) 2. 

It  is  only  the  literary  epigrams  of  the  Anthology  that  are 
connected  by  their  subject  with  the  history  of  Scholarship.  Some 
of  them  contain  the  very  essence  of  ancient  literary  criticism. 
Among  the  poets  here  criticised  we  find  Homer,  Hesiod  and 

1  Krumbacher,  §§  107 — 144,  esp.  §  1122. 

2  Christ,  §  357,  p.  5153;  Krumbacher,  pp.  727-92. 


398 


THE  BYZANTINE  AGE. 


•  [CHAP. 


Antimachus ;  Aleman,  Archilochus,  Stesichorus,  Alcaeus,  Sappho, 
Ibycus,  Hipponax,  Anacreon  and  Pindar;  Aeschylus,  Sophocles 
and  Euripides ;  Aristophanes  and  Menander ;  Lycophron  and 
Callimachus;  Aratus  and  Nicander1.  All  the  nine  lyric  poets 
are  skilfully  discriminated  in  a  single  epigram  (ix  1 84) ;  all  the 
three  bucolic  poets  described  as  gathered  into  one  flock  and  one 
fold  (ix  205);  and,  in  the  dedicatory  verses  by  Meleager  and 
Philippus,  each  of  the  poets  whose  verses  are  entwined  in  the 
garland  of  the  Anthology  is  distinguished  by  the  name  of  an 
appropriate  flower.  The  writers  of  prose  criticised  by  these  poets 
are  comparatively  few ;  but  they  include  Herodotus  and  Thucy¬ 
dides,  Xenophon  and  Plato,  and  some  other  philosophers2.  A 
Byzantine  epigrammatist,  Thomas  Scholasticus,  who  recognises 
‘three  stars  in  rhetoric’,  admires  Aristides  and  Thucydides  no  less 
than  Demosthenes 3.  Lastly,  the  verbal  critics  of  Alexandria  are 
the  theme  of  several  satirical  epigrams,  the  best  known  of  which 
are  those  of  Herodicus  (preserved  by  Athenaeus),  and  of  Anti- 
phanes  (xi  322)  and  Philippus  (xi  32 1)4. 

In  the  latter  half  of  the  tenth  century  the  expulsion  of  the 
Arabs  from  Crete  (061)  is  commemorated  by  Theo- 

Poets  .  '  '  ...  J 

dosius  Diaconus  in  a  long  iambic  poem  of  some 
historical  interest5.  In  the  same  age  we  have  the  prolific  poet, 
John  the  Geometer  (yf.  963-86),  whose  best  work  is  to  be  found 
in  his  epigrams  on  the  old  poets,  philosophers,  rhetoricians  and 
historians6.  Historical  studies  are  meanwhile  represented  (1)  by 
the  Chronicle  bearing  the  name  of  ‘Symeon  Ma- 

Historians  .  .  .  _ 

gister’  who  is  probably  identical  with  the  cele¬ 
brated  Hagiographer,  Symeon  Metaphrastes 7 ;  and  (2)  by  the 
history  of  the  third  quarter  of  the  tenth  century  by  Leo  Diaconus, 
whose  style  is  influenced  by  Homer  as  well  as  Procopius8. 

1  vii  1—75;  405-9;  709'»  745  5  ix  24—26;  64;  184—213;  506,  575  etc; 
cp.  J.  A.  Symonds,  Greek  Poets,  359-66  ;  and  Saintsbury,  i  81-6. 

2  vii  93— 135;  676;  ix  188,  197. 

3  xvi  315.  This,  however,  is  from  the  App.  Planudea  and  is  later  than 
Cephalas. 

4  Supra,  p.  1 6  r  n.  5  Migne,  cxiii  987  f. 

6  ib.  evi  901  f;  Krumbacher,  §§  305-62. 

7  Krumbacher,  §  1492. 

8  ib.  §  1172. 


XXII.] 


SUIDAS. 


399 


To  the  third  quarter  of  the  tenth  century  (950-76) 1  we  may 
assign  the  great  Lexicon  of  Suidas  (SomSas),  which 
is  a  combination  of  a  lexicon  and  an  encyclopaedia, 
the  best  articles  being  those  on  the  history  of  literature.  It  is 
founded  (1)  on  earlier  lexicons,  such  as  the  abridged  Harpo- 
cration,  Aelius  Dionysius,  Pausanias  and  Helladius ;  (2)  on 
scholia  on  Homer,  Sophocles,  Aristophanes  and  Thucydides,  and 
on  commentaries  on  Aristotle ;  (3)  on  histories,  especially  those 
included  in  the  Excerpts  of  Constantine  Porphyrogenitus ;  (4)  on 
biographical  materials  collected  by  Hesychius  of  Miletus,  and  by 
Athenaeus ;  and  (5)  on  other  writers  especially  popular  at  Con¬ 
stantinople  in  the  tenth  century,  such  as  Aelian,  Philostratus 
and  Babrius.  Its  numerous  coincidences  with  the  lexicon  of 
Photius  are  best  explained  by  regarding  both  as  having  borrowed 
from  the  same  originals.  The  earliest  extant  reference  to  the 
lexicon  is  found  in  Eustathius  (latter  part  of  cent.  xii).  The  learned 
Greeks  of  the  Renaissance,  e.g.  Macarius,  Michael  Apostolius, 
Constantine  Lascaris  and  ‘  Emmanuel  ’  (probably  Chrysoloras), 
compiled  many  extracts  from  its  pages2.  A  minor  lexicon,  the 
Violarium  (’lama)  bearing  the  name  of  Eudocia  (1059 — 1067), 
the  consort  of  Constantine  Ducas,  is  partly  composed  of  excerpts 
from  Suidas,  and  is  now  ascribed  to  Constantine  Palaeokappa 
(c.  1543)3,  who  was  actually  indebted  to  printed  books  for  some 
of  the  learning  which  he  palmed  off  on  the  world  under  the 
name  of  an  empress  of  the  eleventh  century. 

1  The  list  of  emperors,  s.v.  ’A5a /jl,  ends  with  Joannes  Tzimiskes  (d.  976) ; 
but  this  may  be  a  later  addition,  and  the  lexicon  as  a  whole  may  be  of  earlier 
date. 

2  On  Suidas,  cp.  Christ,  §  633s;  Krumbacher,  §  233s;  Wentzel,  Beitrdge 
zur  Geschichte  der  griechischen  Lexikographen  (A.  Ber.  Berlin  Akad.  1895, 

477—487)-  __  _ 

3  Christ,  p.  844® ;  Krumbacher,  §  2402. 


. 


Conspectus  of  Greek  Literature,  &c.,  1000 — c.  1453  A.D 


Emperors 

1000 

Poets 

Historians, 

Chroniclers 

Rhetoricians, 

&c. 

Scholars 

Ecclesiastical 

Writers 

976  Basil  II 

1025  Constan¬ 
tine  VIII 
1028  Romanus 

in 

1034  Michael  IV 
1042  Michael  V 
1042  Constan¬ 
tine  IX 
1054  Theodora 

1056  Michael  VI 

1057  Isaac  I 
Comnenus 

1059  Constan¬ 
tine  X  Ducas 
1067  Romanus 
IV 

1071  Michael 
VII  Ducas 
1078  Nicephorus 

ni 

1081  Alexius  I 

non 

Christophorus 
of  Mytilene 
fl.  1028-43 
John  Mauropus 
fl.  1042-55 

Christ  us 
Patiens 

1071  John 

Xiphilinus 
1080  John 

Scylitzes 
1080  Michael 

Attaliates 
1080  Nicephorus 
Bryennius 
1062—  c.  1138 
Cedrenus 

John  Doxopatres 
‘  Siceliotes  ’ 

Michael  Andreo- 
pulus,  trans¬ 
lator  of  ‘Syn- 
tipas  ’ 

Avicenna 

980 — 1037 

Psellus 

1018-78 

1057-9  Isaac 
Porphyrogeni- 
tus 

Algazel 

1059-ini 

John  Italus 
Michael  of 
Ephesus 
Eustratius  of 
Nicaea 
c.  1050 — 1120 

Symeon 
c.  1025 — c.  1092 

1078  Theophy- 
lact 

Euthymius 
Zigabenus 
fl.  1081 — 1118 

llvv 

1118  John  II 

Constantine 

‘  E  tymologicum 

Comnenus 

Theodorus 

Manasses 

Gudianum  ’ 

1143  Manuel  I 

Prodromus 

1145  Zonaras 

Michael  Italicus 

1143  Nicholaus 

Comnenus 

d.  c.  1159 

1148  Anna 

fl.  1147-66 

of  Methone 

1180  Alexius  II 

Comnena 

T  imarion 

Tzetzes 

d.  c.  1165 

Comnenus 

1083 — 1148 

1155  Nicephorus 

1110 — 1180  + 

1183  Andronicus 

1176  John 

Basilakes 

1175  Eustathius 

I  Comnenus 

Cinnamus 

1175  Michael 

d.  c.  1 1 92-4 

1185  Isaac  II 

1143 —c.  1x86 

Acominatus 

Angelus 

Michael  Glykas 

1140 — 1220 

Gregorius 

1195  Alexius  III 

c.  1130 — c.  1190. 

Corinthius 

i  °nn 

1203  Isaac  II  & 

1206  Nicetas 

‘  E  tymologicum 

Alexius  IV 

Acominatus 

Magnum '  be- 

1204  Alexius  V 

1204  Loss  of 

c.  1150 — c.  1211 

tween  1100 

Ducas 

Constantinople 

and  1250 

Nicaean  Em- 

Latin  Emperors 

perors 

1204  Baldwin  I 

1204  Theodore  I 

1206  Henry 

Lascaris 

1217  Peter 

1222  John  Ill 

1219  Robert 

Ducas 

1228  Baldwin  II 

1254  Theodore 

-6l 

Blemmydes 

► 

II  Lascaris 

c.  1197 — 1272 

1258  John  IV 

Lascaris 

1259  Michael 

Georgius  (Gre- 

VIII  Pal- 

eorius)Cvprius 

aeologus 

1241 — c.  1290 

1261  Recovery  of 

Constantinople 

Nicephorus 

1296  Maximus 

1275  Joannes 

1282  Andronicus 

A  nthologia 

1261  Acropolites 

Chumnus 

Planudes 

Beccus  f 

II 

Planudea 

1217 — 1282 

c.  1261 — c.  1328 

1260 — 1310 

d.  c.  1293  ■ 

1  <tnn 

Manuel  Philes 

1 3o8Pachymeres 

Moschopulus 

1328  Andronicus 

c.  1275—1345 

1242 — c.  1310 

fl.  1295—1316 

III 

Iliad  of 

Thomas 

1349  Gregorius 

1341-76  John  V 

Hermoniacus 

Xanthopulus 

Magister 

Palamas 

i34I_55  John  VI 

c-  i323-35 

1295 — c.  1360 

fl.  1283—1328 

John  Cyparis- 

Cantacuzenus 

Theodorus 

siotes 

1376  Andronicus 

Demetrius 

Metochites 

1353  Philotheus 

IV 

1365  Tohn 

Cydones 

fl.  1283—1328 

1360  Nilus 

1370  lohn  V 

Cantacuzenus 

c.  1325— c.  1396 

Triclinius 

Cabasilas 

(restored) 

c.  1295—1383 

John  Pediasimus 

Nicolaus 

1391  Manuel  II 

1359  Nicephorus 

fl.  1328-41 

Cabasilas 

1425  John  VIII 

Gregoras 

1391  Manuel  11 

Andreas  Lopa- 

{Mystic)  d.  1371 

1448  Constan- 

1462  Ducas 

1350—1425 

diotes,  Lex  icon 

1438  Bessarion 

tine  XI 

1463  Laonicus 

1416  Mazaris 

V indobonense 

c.  1395—1472 

1453  Fall  of 

1467  Critobulus 

1450  Matthaeus 

i397Chrysoloras 

Co?is  taut  inop  le 

1477  Phrantzes 

Camariotes 

c-  1355— 1415 

CHAPTER  XXIII. 


BYZANTINE  SCHOLARSHIP,  IOOO — I35O  A.D.  AND  AFTER. 

The  consolidation  of  Byzantine  legislation  and  despotism, 
which  had  continued  for  a  century  (867 — 963)  under  the  first 
four  emperors  of  the  Basilian  dynasty,  was  followed  by  a  shorter 
period  of  conquest  and  military  glory  (963 — 1025)  under  John 
Tzimiskes  and  Basil  ‘the  slayer  of  the  Bulgarians’,  and  ended 
in  a  still  shorter  period  of  conservatism  and  stationary  prosperity 
(1025 — 1057)  under  Constantine  VIII  and  the  three  successive 
husbands  of  his  daughter  Zoe.  Shortly  before  this  last  period 
falls  the  birth  of  Psellus  (1018 — 1078),  the  most  notable  personage 
in  the  Byzantine  literature  of  the  eleventh  century.  pg 
Born  at  Nicomedeia,  he  learnt  law  at  Constanti¬ 
nople  from  the  future  patriarch  Xiphilinus,  whom  he  imbued 
with  an  interest  in  philosophy.  According  to  his  own  account, 
his  study  of  inferior  philosophers  led  him  at  last  to  Aristotle  and 
Plato,  and  thence  to  Plotinus,  Porphyry,  Iamblichus  and  Proclus  \ 
He  also  tells  us  that  in  his  time  learning  flourished  no  longer 
at  Athens  or  Nicomedeia,  at  Alexandria  or  in  Phoenicia,  or  in 
either  Rome,  the  Old  or  the  New1 2.  Under  the  second  of  the 
three  husbands  of  Zoe,  Michael  the  Paphlagonian  (1034-41), 
he  held  a  judicial  appointment  at  Philadelphia;  and  under  the 
third,  Constantine  Monomachus  (1042-55),  he  became  Professor 
of  Philosophy  in  the  newly  founded  Academy  of  law,  philosophy 
and  philology  at  Constantinople.  In  that  capacity  he  aroused 
a  new  interest  in  the  philosophy  of  Plato,  which  he  preferred 

1  History  of  Psellus  (vi  37  f)  p.  108,  ed.  Sathas  1899. 

2  ib.  p.  1 10. 

S.  26 


402 


THE  BYZANTINE  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


to  that  of  Aristotle,  the  favourite  philosopher  of  the  Church,  thus 
exposing  himself  to  the  imputation  of  heresy.  As  a  public 
teacher,  he  did  much  for  the  revival  of  Greek  literature,  and 
particularly  for  the  study  of  Plato;  and  students  even  from  Arabia 
and  the  distant  East  sat  at  his  feet.  He  rose  to  the  high  position 
of  Secretary  of  State;  but,  when  (in  1054)  the  friend  of  his  youth, 
Xiphilinus,  withdrew  to  the  famous  monastery  on  the  slopes  of 
the  Mysian  Olympus,  he  became  a  monk,  and,  on  the  death 
of  the  emperor  (1055),  entered  the  monastery  of  his  friend.  It 
was  not  long,  however,  before  he  returned  to  public  life ;  and, 
after  the  overthrow  of  the  last  of  the  Basilian  dynasty  (Michael  VI) 
in  1057,  he  held  high  office  under  Isaac  Comnenus  and  both 
of  his  successors.  He  became  Prime  Minister  under  the  next 
emperor,  his  own  pupil  Michael  VII,  who  proved  ‘a  worthless 
sovereign’,  spending  his  time  in  composing  rhetorical  exercises 
and  sets  of  iambic  or  anapaestic  verse,  instead  of  attending  to 
public  business1.  In  1075  he  delivered  the  funeral  oration  over 
his  friend  Xiphilinus,  the  third  of  the  patriarchs  whom  he  thus 
commemorated ;  and,  not  long  after  the  fall  of  his  imperial  pupil, 
he  died  (1078). 

His  attainments  as  a  scholar  were  most  varied.  In  his  speech 
in  memory  of  his  mother2,  he  describes  himself  as  lecturing  on 
Homer  and  Menander  and  Archilochus,  on  Orpheus  and  Musaeus, 
on  the  Sibylls  and  Sappho,  on  Theano  and  ‘the  wise  woman 
of  Egypt  ’,  meaning  probably  Hypatia.  By  Menander  he  perhaps 
intends  proverbial  lines  from  that  poet,  for,  elsewhere,  he  mentions 
MevavSpcta,  and  not  Menander,  immediately  after  the  tragic  poets 
and  Aristophanes3.  In  his  high-flown  eulogy  of  Constantine 
Monomachus,  the  eloquence,  wit  and  wisdom  of  the  emperor 
remind  him  of  the  great  orators,  lyric  poets  and  philosophers 
of  old4.  His  voluminous  writings  include  not  only  a  history 
of  the  century  (976 — 1077)  preceding  the  close  of  his  life,  but 
also  an  iambic  poem  on  Greek  dialects  and  on  rules  of  grammar, 
and  a  brief  description  of  the  surroundings  of  Athens.  In  his 

1  Finlay,  iii  38. 

2  Sathas,  Bibl.  Gr.  Medii  Aevi ,  v  59. 

3  ib.  538  ;  Krumbacher,  p.  5042  n. 

4  Sathas,  l.  c .,  v  no. 


XXIII.] 


PSELLUS. 


403 


Letters ,  in  which  the  Greek  Classics  are  often  mentioned,  he 
pays  honour  to  the  Athenians  and  Peloponnesians  for  the  sake 
of  their  ancestors  *,  and  laments  that  the  Academy  and  the  Stoa 
have  fallen  into  obscurity  and  that  the  Lyceum  has  become 
nothing  more  than  a  name1 2.  In  a  Letter  on  Gregory  Nazianzen 
he  has  many  interesting  criticisms  on  the  style  of  the  ancient 
writers3.  His  list  of  the  forensic  phrases  of  Athens  includes 
a  passage  on  the  reforms  of  Cleisthenes,  with  regard  to  the  dis¬ 
tribution  of  the  denies  among  the  new  tribes,  which  we  now  know 
to  have  been  ultimately  derived  from  Aristotle’s  Constitution  of 
Athens 4.  Psellus  has  been  well  described  as  the  Photius  of  the 
eleventh  century.  His  general  model  in  style  is  Plato,  while 
the  short  rhythmical  and  antithetical  clauses  of  his  Letters 
resemble  the  sacred  poetry  of  the  Byzantine  age.  He  exercised 
a  considerable  influence  on  the  writers  of  the  next  generation5. 

The  successor  of  Psellus  as  Professor  of  Philosophy  was  John 
Italus,  a  keen  student  of  dialectic,  who  (without  commenta 
neglecting  Plato  and  the  Neo-Platonists)  mainly  tors  on 
devoted  himself  to  the  exposition  of  Aristotle,  and  Anstotle 
especially  to  the  De  Interpretatio?ie  and  Books  11 — iv  of  the 
Topica 6.  A  pupil  of  Psellus,  Michael  of  Ephesus,  commented 
on  part  of  the  Organon  (adding  excerpts  from  Alexander  of 
Aphrodisias)  and  also  on  the  Ethics 7 ;  while  Eustratius  of 
Nicaea  ( c .  1050 — c.  1120)  expounded  the  Ethics 8  as  well  as  the 
Second  Book  of  the  Later  Analytics 9. 

1  Ep.  20,  quoted  on  p.  377  ;  Gregorovius,  Stadt  Athen,  i  177. 

2  Ep.  186,  p.  472,  Sathas. 

3  First  letter  to  Pothos  printed  in  H.  O.  Coxe,  Cat.  Bodl.  i  743 — 751. 

4  21  §  4  with  Testimonium  in  present  wiiter’s  ed. 

5  Krumbacher,  §  1842;  cp.  Bury’s  Gibbon,  v  504.  A  ‘synopsis’  of 
Aristotle’s  Logic,  which  bears  the  name  of  Psellus,  is  the  original  of  the  Latin 
compendium  of  Petrus  Hispanus  and  his  predecessors.  The  mnemonic  words 
ypdp.pura,  Hypape,  ypa<f>iSi,  tcx^ikSs  are  represented  in  Latin  by  Barbara , 
celarent,  darii ,  ferio  ;  and  similarly  in  the  other  ‘  figures’.  Cf.  Prantl,  Logik, 
ii2  263 — 301. 

6  ib.  %  1852. 

7  ed.  Heylbut  in  Berlin  Ar.  Comm,  xx  461 — 620. 

8  ib.  pp.  1 — 406. 

9  Venice,  1534.  Cp.  Krumbacher,  pp.  43o2f. 


26 — 2 


404 


THE  BYZANTINE  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Among  the  published  works  of  Psellus  we  find  an  encomium 
of  more  than  25  pages  in  honour  of  Joannes 
MaurSpus  Mauropus  who,  besides  passing  through  the  ordi¬ 
nary  education  of  his  day,  had  made  a  special 
study  of  Latin,  had  modelled  his  Greek  on  that  of  Isocrates, 
and  not  unfrequently  lit  up  the  sombre  style  of  his  Letters  with 
some  glowing  phrase  ‘like  a  rose  in  winter’1.  Not  long  after 
the  accession  of  Constantine  Monomachus  (1042)  he  became 
Professor  of  Philosophy  at  Constantinople  ;  but  we  soon  after¬ 
wards  find  him  in  1047  bishop  of  Euchaita,  which  lies  between 
the  Iris  and  the  Halys,  a  day’s  journey  beyond  Amasia  in  Pontus. 
He  was  the  founder  of  the  annual  festival  which  is  still  celebrated 
by  the  Eastern  Church  in  honour  of  Chrysostom,  Basil  and 
Gregory  Nazianzen;  and  he  sets  a  noble  example  of  Christian 
toleration  in  an  epigram  in  honour  of  Plato  and  Plutarch2.  In 
the  history  of  Scholarship  he  deserves  mention  as  the  author 
of  an  etymological  work  in  iambic  verse.  The  words  selected 
are  suggested  by  the  Greek  text  of  the  Scriptures  and  they  are 
arranged  in  order  of  subjects,  beginning  with  words  such  as  ©cos, 
ayycA.05,  oupavos,  acrTrjp ,  ^A.ios,  cre\.iijvr],  and  with  the  names  of  the 
winds  and  the  four  elements.  Plato  in  the  Cratylus  had  con¬ 
jectured  that  7 Tvp  was  an  old  ‘  barbaric  ’  word,  but  had  attempted 
to  supply  a  derivation  for  yfj.  Later  etymologists  had  added  yfj 
to  the  list  of  primary  words ;  and  Joannes  Mauropus  agrees 
with  them,  protesting  against  a  contemporary  who  excluded  yfj 
from  the  primary  words,  and  adding  that,  for  monosyllables,  we 
are  not  bound  to  discover  etymologies.  The  authority  followed 
by  Mauropus  was  apparently  Jacob,  bishop  of  Edessa  (701),  who 
produced  a  Christian  version  of  an  earlier  work  on  ‘etymology’ 
or  ‘  Hellenism  ’,  ultimately  founded  either  on  Seleucus  or  some 
contemporary  grammarian  in  the  age  of  Augustus  and  Tiberius3. 

We  have  already  noticed  the  Etymologicum  genuinum  and  the 
Etymologicum  parvum  as  having  been  prepared 
L?xfcons°glCal  under  the  direction  of  Photius.  Next  in  date  to 
these  works  is  th e  Ety??tologicum  (c.  1100)  deriving 
the  epithet  of  Gudianum  from  the  former  owner  of  an  inferior  ms 


1  Psellus  in  Sathas,  /.  c.,  v  pp.  148 — 150. 

3  Reitzenstein,  Etymologika,  pp.  173 — 189. 


2  Krumbacher,  §  3082. 


XXIII.]  MAUROPUS.  ETYMOLOGICAL  LEXICONS. 


405 


of  the  same  (1293),  the  Dane  Marquard  Glide  (d.  1689),  whose 
collection  was  presented  by  Peter  Burman  to  the  Library  of 
Wolfenbiittel.  Many  items  in  this  Etymologicum  are  borrowed 
from  the  Et.  genuinum  and  the  Et.  parvum ,  and  their  source 
is  denoted  in  the  best  ms,  the  codex  Barber inus  I  70  (hardly  later 
than  cent,  xi),  by  a  monogram  for  <E>omo?  consisting  of  two  circles 
written  above  one  another  with  the  vertical  stroke  of  T  running 
through  the  centre  of  each1.  Some  of  the  items  so  marked  are 
not  to  be  found  in  our  mss  of  the  two  Etymologica  edited  by 
Photius,  but  all  of  them  were  probably  taken  from  less  imperfect 
copies  of  the  same  works2.  In  general,  the  compiler  fails  in 
judicious  selection,  while  he  attempts  to  combine  divergent  views, 
and  copies  from  his  different  authorities  the  same  opinion  in 
varying  forms3.  For  the  preservation  of  the  old  lexicons  the 
ninth  and  tenth  centuries  were  as  fatal  as  they  were  fruitful. 
Photius  and  his  circle  diffused  a  wider  interest  in  lexicography, 
but  the  value  of  the  works  produced  was  constantly  deteriorating, 
the  originals  being  abridged  or  expanded  at  the  copyist’s  caprice. 
In  the  twelfth  century  industrious  scholars  appear  to  have  gone 
back  to  the  works  of  the  age  of  Photius.  Hence  arose  the 
so-called  Etyitiologicutn  Magnum ,  which  was  founded  mainly  on 
the  Et.  genuinum  with  additions  from  the  Et.  Gudianum  and 
from  Stephanus  of  Byzantium  and  Tryphon  ‘  on  breathings 
while  it  dealt  very  freely  with  the  Et.  gen.  by  altering  the  headings 
and  the  phraseology,  suppressing  quotations,  adding  passages 
from  Homer,  and  in  general  aiming  at  something  more  than  an 
expanded  recension  of  its  original4.  It  was  compiled  between 
1100  and  1250.  It  was  first  printed  (with  many  interpolations) 
by  Callierges  (1499)  who  was  the  first  to  give  the  work  the  name 
of  Et.  magnum.  It  was  afterwards  edited  by  Sylburg  (1594)  and 
Gaisford  (1848).  The  Etymologicum  of  ‘  the  great  grammarian’ 
Symeon5  is  an  abridged  edition  of  the  Et.  genuinum  with  additions 

1  Reitzenstein,  /.  c.,  p.  138.  The  publisher  of  that  work  (B.  G.  Teubner) 
has  kindly  supplied  me  with  a  facsimile  of  the  symbol,  ^ .  Leopold  Cohn 
{Deutsche  Litteraturzeitung,  1897,  p.  1417)  demurs  to  accepting  |  as  a 
monogram  for  3>wt(ios),  but  gives  no  other  explanation. 

2  ib.  152  f.  3  ib.  155.  4  ib.  241  f. 

5  Studemund,  Anecd.  Var.  Gr.  i  113  f. 


40  6 


THE  BYZANTINE  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Lexica 

Segueriana 


from  the  Et.  Gudianum ,  Stephanus  of  Byzantium  and  a  lost 
‘rhetorical  lexicon’.  It  is  later  than  noo  and  earlier  than  1150, 
the  approximate  date  of  the  lexicon  of  ‘Zonaras’,  which  derives 
its  etymological  glosses  from  this  source.  An  expansion  of 
Symeon’s  work  is  described  as  the  ‘great  grammar’1. 

The  Lexica  Segueriana  are  so  called  because  they  are  pre¬ 
served  in  a  ms  of  cent,  xi  formerly  belonging  to 
Pierre  Seguier  (1 588 — 1672,  President  of  the  French 
Academy),  now  in  the  Paris  Library  ( Coislinianus 
345).  This  ms,  which  contains  a  number  of  minor  lexicons  and 
treatises  on  syntax,  presents  us  with  a  vivid  picture  of  the  general 
range  of  grammatical  studies  in  Constantinople  during  the  tenth 
and  eleventh  centuries.  It  includes  lexicons  to  Homer  (that  of 
Apollonius),  Herodotus  and  Plato  (that  of  Timaeus),  the  lexicons 
of  Moeris  and  Phrynichus,  and  five  anonymous  lexicons,  generally 
called  the  lexica  Segueriana ,  (1)  an  anti-atticist  work  directed 
against  Phrynichus ;  (2)  a  lexicon  on  syntax  with  examples  going 
down  as  far  as  Procopius  (fl.  527 — 562)  and  Petrus  Patricius 
( c .  500 — 562);  (3)  a  list  of  forensic  terms;  (4)  rhetorical  terms 
with  notes  on  Greek  antiquities,  derived  from  a  lexicon  to  the 
Orators;  (5)  a  avvayu>yr)  xpqcrLfjuav,  in  which  the  treatment 

of  words  beginning  with  A  is  very  lengthy  owing  to  numerous 
additions  from  Phrynichus,  Aelius  Dionysius  and  others  2. 

The  Lexicon  Vindobonense  was  the  work  of  one  Andreas 
Lopadiotes  (first  half  of  cent.  xiv).  Almost  its  only 
vindobonense  value  rests  on  the  fact  that  it  has  preserved  lines 
from  Sophocles3  and  Pherecrates  not  found  else¬ 
where.  It  is  mainly  founded  on  the  abridged  Harpocration 4. 

The  eleventh  century  claims  one  of  the  best  of  the  Byzantine 
poets,  Christophorus  of  Mytilene  (fl.  1028-43), 
who  writes  occasional  verses  and  epigrams  in  the 
iambic  metre5.  The  tragic  cento  called  the  Christus  Patiens , 


1  Reitzenstein,  254  f.  Cp.  Krumbacher,  §  237s. 

2  The  Lex.  Seg.  are  printed  in  Bekker’s  Anecd.  Gr.  pp.  75 — 476,  including 
A  of  (5) ;  the  rest  of  which  has  since  been  published  in  Bachmann’s  Anecd.  Gr. 
i  1 — 422.  Cp.  Christ,  §  635s  ;  Krumbacher,  §  236s. 

3  Nauck  738,  ^r\fxlav  \afieip  &p.eiv6v  ecnv  17  K^pdos  kolk6v. 

4  Krumbacher,  §  238s. 

6  ed.  Rocchi  (1887) ;  Krumbacher,  §  3072. 


XXIII.] 


LEXICA  SEGUERIANA. 


407 


once  ascribed  to  Gregory  Nazianzen,  is  now  assigned  to  the 
eleventh  or  twelfth  century1. 

History  is  represented  not  only  by  Psellus,  the  friend  of 
the  patriarch  John  Xiphilinus,  but  also  by  that 
patriarch’s  nephew  and  namesake,  who,  at  the 
prompting  of  Michael  VII  (1071-8),  produced  an  epitome  of 
books  36  to  80  of  Dion  Cassius  and  thus  preserved  for  us  the 
substance  of  the  last  twenty  books,  which  would  otherwise  have 
been  completely  lost 2.  The  year  1080  approximately  marks  the 
close  of  three  other  historical  works,  (1)  the  Chronicle  (811 — 1079) 
of  John  Scylitzes  who  carries  on  the  works  of  George  Syncellus 
and  of  Theophanes ;  (2)  the  history  (1034—79)  of  Michael 
Attaliates ;  and  (3)  the  materials  for  the  life  of  Alexius  Comnenus 
collected  by  Nicephorus  Bryennius  who  makes  Xenophon  his 
model,  and  whose  work  is  continued  and  completed  by  his  wife, 
the  daughter  of  Alexius,  Anna  Comnena.  Late  in  this  century, 
or  early  in  the  next,  we  may  place  the  Chronicle  compiled  by 
Cedrenus,  which  begins  with  the  Creation  and  ends  with 
1057  A.D.3 

One  of  the  foremost  Byzantine  rhetoricians  is  John  Doxo- 
patres,  also  known  as  Tohn  Siceliotes,  an  important 

r  J  .4  Rhetoricians 

commentator  on  Hermogenes  and  Aphthonius  . 

He  belongs  to  the  first  half  of  the  eleventh  century5.  At  the 
close  of  the  same  century  a  widely  popular  collection  of  oriental 
stories,  which  had  been  translated  from  Sanskrit  into  all  the 
languages  of  the  East,  was  rendered  from  Syriac  into  Greek 
under  the  name  of  ‘Syntipas’  by  Michael  Andreopulus,  a  Christian 
subject  of  the  Armenian  prince  Gabriel  of  Melitene.  Through 
this  Greek  rendering  the  stories  passed  to  the  West,  where  they 
reappeared  in  the  romances  of  the  Seven  Sages  and  of  Dolo- 
pathos,  and  even  had  their  influence  on  the  Gesta  Romanorum 
and  on  the  Decameron  of  Boccaccio6. 

1  Krumbacher,  §  3122. 

2  ib,  §  15.V2. 

3  ib.  §  1522. 

4  Walz,  Rh.  Gr.  ii  and  vi.  Cp.  Saintsbury,  i  187  f. 

5  Krumbacher,  §  1952. 

6  ib.  §  393s. 


40  8 


THE  BYZANTINE  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


The  ecclesiastical  writers  of  the  century  include  Symeon,  the 
head  of  the  Monastery  of  St  Mamas  in  Constanti- 
wSersia8tICal  n°ple>  one  of  the  greatest  mystics  of  the  Eastern 
Church  and  the  precursor  of  the  fanatic  quietists 
of  the  fourteenth  century1;  and  the  eminent  biblical  commentator, 
Theophylact,  archbishop  of  Bulgaria,  who  owes  much  to  Chryso¬ 
stom  and  Gregory  Nazianzen2.  His  Exhortation ,  addressed  to 
his  royal  pupil,  Constantine,  son  of  Michael  VII,  is  founded 
on  Xenophon,  Plato,  Polybius,  Diogenes  Laertius,  Synesius,  and 
especially  on  Dion  Chrysostom  and  Themistius.  It  also  shows 
a  striking  absence  of  prejudice  in  its  quotations  from  Julian  ‘  the 
Apostate’.  His  Panegyric  on  the  emperor  Alexius  Comnenus 
closes  with  an  impressive  appeal  for  the  protection  of  learning8. 

The  twelfth  century  is  marked  by  the  name  of  Tzetzes 
(c.  mo — c.  1180),  the  author  of  a  didactic  poem 
on  literary  and  historical  topics  extending  over  no 
less  than  12,674  lines  of  accentual  verse,  and  displaying  a  vast 
amount  of  miscellaneous  reading.  The  name  of  Chiliades  is  due 
to  its  first  editor,  the  author’s  own  name  for  it  being  simply 
PifiXos  io-Topucrj.  The  work  is  in  the  form  of  a  versified  com¬ 
mentary  on  his  own  Letters ,  which  are  full  of  mythological, 
literary  and  historical  learning.  The  following  lines  on  the  seven 
liberal  arts,  founded  on  a  passage  in  Porphyry,  are  a  very  favour¬ 
able  example  of  his  style : — 


Tzetzes 


Sevrtpu) s  5k  eyK\jK\ia  p.adr]fJ.aTa  kclXovvtcu 
6  kijkXos,  t6  avpLTtpa<rp.a  ttolvtwv  tQv  padr) panov, 
ypap.pLaTiKT)S,  pT)TopiKr}s ,  atirrjs  <pi\o<xo<pias, 

Kal  tCjv  Tecrcrapwv  5k  TtyvCiv  tQv  vi r’  avTTjv  Keip.kvu v, 
rrjs  apt,dp.ot>G7]s,  p.ov<riK7)S,  Kal  rrjs  yeiop-eTpias, 

Kal  tt)$  ovpavo[3api.oPOS  avrijs  aarpovop.las 4. 


The  contents  of  this  prodigious  work  show  that  its  author’s 
reading  included,  in  verse,  Homer,  Hesiod,  Pindar,  the  tragic 
poets,  Aristophanes,  Theocritus,  Apollonius  Rhodius,  Lycophron, 
Nicander,  Dionysius  Periegetes,  Oppian,  the  Orphica,  Quintus 
Smyrnaeus  and  the  Greek  Anthology.  In  prose,  he  was  familiar 
with  historians,  such  as  Herodotus,  Diodorus,  Josephus,  Plutarch, 


1  Krumbacher,  §  63s. 
3  id.  §  1 96s. 


2  id.  §  52s. 
4  xi  525  f. 


XXTII.] 


TZETZES.  ANNA  COMNENA. 


409 


Arrian,  Dion  Cassius  and  Procopius;  with  orators,  such  as  Lysias, 
Demosthenes  and  Aeschines ;  with  philosophers,  such  as  Plato 
and  Aristotle;  with  geographers,  such  as  Strabo  and  Stephanus 
of  Byzantium  ;  and,  lastly,  with  the  satirist  Lucian.  The  total 
number  of  authors  quoted  exceeds  400.  His  other  works  in¬ 
clude  Allegories 1  on  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  in  10,000  lines 
(e.  1145-58);  a  Commentary  on  the  Iliad  (e.  1143);  hexameter 
poems  on  Antehomerica,  Homerica  and  Posthomerica ;  scholia  on 
Hesiod  (before  1138)  and  on  Aristophanes,  with  important  pro- 
legome?ia  giving  valuable  information  on  the  Alexandrian  Libraries2; 
scholia  on  Lycophron,  Oppian,  and  probably  Nicander;  a  versified 
epitome  of  the  Rhetoric  of  Hermogenes ;  and,  lastly,  a  poem  on 
Prosody  (after  1138).  We  learn  much  about  Tzetzes  from  his 
own  writings  ;  he  often  complains  of  his  poverty  and  his  mis¬ 
fortunes  and  of  the  scanty  recognition  of  his  services.  He  was 
once  reduced  to  such  distress  that  he  found  himself  compelled 
to  sell  all  his  books,  except  his  Plutarch ;  and  he  had  bitter  feuds 
with  other  scholars.  His  inordinate  self-esteem  is  only  exceeded 
by  his  extraordinary  carelessness.  He  calls  Simonides  of  Amorgos 
the  son  of  Amorgos,  makes  Naxos  a  town  in  Euboea,  describes 
Servius  Tullius  as  ‘consul’  and  ‘emperor’  of  Rome,  and  con¬ 
founds  the  Euphrates  with  the  Nile.  He  is  proud  of  his  rapid 
pen  and  his  remarkable  memory ;  but  his  memory  often  plays 
him  false,  and  he  is,  for  the  most  part,  dull  as  a  writer  and 
untrustworthy  as  an  authority3. 

The  patrons  of  Tzetzes  included  Isaac  Comnenus,  brother 
of  the  best  of  the  Byzantine  emperors,  John  II  (d.  1143);  also 
the  latter’s  son  and  successor,  Manuel  I  (d.  1180),  and  Manuel’s 
first  wife  the  German  princess  Bertha  (Irene).  Anna  Comnena, 
the  sister  of  John,  may  here  be  mentioned  as  the 
writer  of  a  life  of  her  father  Alexius  I,  which  Comnena 
supplemented  and  continued  in  1148  the  materials 
collected  by  her  husband,  the  distinguished  soldier  and  diplo¬ 
matist,  Nicephorus  Bryennius  (d.  1137).  She  is  familiar  with 
Homer,  Aristophanes,  and  the  tragic  poets,  as  well  as  with 
Herodotus,  Thucydides  and  Polybius,  and  her  work  is  the  earliest 

1  Cp.  Saintsbury,  i  187.  2  Supra ,  p.  119  n. 

3  Krumbacher,  §  2192. 


4io 


THE  BYZANTINE  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Eustathius 


monument  of  the  literary  revival  inspired  by  the  example  of 
Psellus1.  John  II  and  Manuel  were  among  the 
ProdromusS  patrons  of  Theodorus  Prodromus  (d.  after  1159), 
a  poverty-stricken  poet,  who  writes  in  colloquial 
as  well  as  classical  Greek,  and  is  specially  successful  in  prose, 
as  an  imitator  of  Lucian2. 

The  most  memorable  name  among  the  scholars  of  the  twelfth 
century  is  that  of  Eustathius,  whose  philological 
studies  at  Constantinople  preceded  his  tenure  of 
the  archbishopric  of  Thessalonica  from  1175  to  c.  1192.  Of  his 
Commentary  on  Pindar ,  written  while  he  wras  still  a  deacon,  the 
only  part  preserved  is  a  valuable  preface  on  lyrical  and  Pindaric 
poetry,  on  the  poet’s  life,  and  on  the  Olympic  games  and  the 
pentathlum3;  but  there  is  nothing  to  show  that  he  possessed 
any  more  of  the  Epinician  Odes  than  ourselves.  His  next  work 
is  his  paraphrase  and  scholia  to  Dionysius  Periegetes 4,  followed 
by  an  important  Commentary  on  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey 5.  That 
on  the  Iliad  is  twice  as  long  as  that  on  the  Odyssey ;  both  are 
preceded  by  literary  introductions  in  which  the  commentator 
dwells  with  enthusiasm  on  the  abiding  influence  of  Homer  on 
the  literature  of  Greece 6.  Both  of  them  comprise  many  excerpts 
from  earlier  writers,  including  Herodian’s  work  on  accentuation. 
The  title  irapzKpoXai  implies  incidental  extracts  made  in  the 
course  of  general  reading,  and  is  specially  appropriate  to  what 
is  primarily  a  compilation.  Eustathius  makes  much  use  of  the 
Homeric  glossary  of  Apion  and  Herodorus,  which  is  partly 
founded  on  the  same  materials  as  the  scholia  to  the  Venice  ms 
of  Homer  and  has  thus  preserved  some  of  the  criticisms  of 
Aristarchus.  Among  his  other  authorities  are  Athenaeus,  Strabo, 
and  Stephanus  of  Byzantium ;  also  Heracleides  of  Miletus  and 
two  Greek  works  of  Suetonius,  together  writh  the  lexicons  of 
Aelius  Dionysius  and  Pausanias,  the  original  Etymologicum  magtium 


1  Krumbacher,  §§  J20,  1212.  2  ib.  §§313,  333s ;  p.  354  supra. 

3  Printed  in  Dissen  and  Schneidewin’s  Pindar ,  1843. 

4  ed.  Bernhardy  (1828),  and  C.  Muller  ii tGeogr.  Gr.  Min.  ii  201  f. 

5  ed.  Stallbaum,  7  vols.  1825-30. 

6  In  another  work  he  refers  to  dramatic  representations  of  Homeric  scenes 
at  Thessalonica;  Opuscula ,  p.  81,  Tafel. 


XXIII.]  EUSTATHIUS.  MICHAEL  ACOMINATUS. 


41  I 

(i.e.  the  complete  text  of  the  imperfectly  preserved  Et.  genuinum ) l, 
and  Sui'das,  who  is  not  quoted  by  any  earlier  commentator. 
These  are  only  a  few  of  his  text-books :  ‘  from  his  horn  of 
plenty’  (in  the  phrase  of  Gibbon)  he  ‘has  poured  the  names 
and  authorities  of  four  hundred  writers’2. 

His  great  commentary  on  Homer  has  led  modern  scholars 
to  regard  him  as  one  of  the  most  instructive  of  the  Byzantines. 
But  he  is  much  more  than  a  mere  scholiast;  while  in  learning 
he  stands  high  among  all  his  contemporaries,  he  is  also  a  man 
of  political  insight,  and  a  bold  and  far-seeing  reformer.  His 
Commentaries  belong  to  his  earlier  life  at  Constantinople,  when 
his  house  was  the  chief  literary  centre  in  the  capital  and  was 
comparable  with  the  Academies  of  ancient  Athens 3.  His  works 
on  the  history  of  his  own  times  refer  to  the  years  after  he  had 
become  archbishop  of  Thessalonica  (1175).  During  the  disastrous 
invasion  by  the  Normans  from  Sicily  in  1185  he  remained  at  the 
post  of  peril,  conciliated  the  Sicilian  generals  and  induced  them 
to  restrain  the  excesses  of  their  troops4,  and  afterwards  wrote 
a  narrative  of  the  causes  and  the  result  of  the  invasion5.  He 
also  did  much  towards  raising  the  general  intellectual  and  moral 
standard  among  the  Greek  monks  of  his  diocese.  He  protests 
against  their  reducing  their  monastic  libraries  to  the  level  of 
their  own  ignorance  by  parting  with  their  books,  and  implores 
them  to  allow  those  libraries  to  retain  their  precious  stores  for 
the  sake  of  those  who  at  some  future  time  might  be  inspired  with 
a  greater  love  of  learning  than  themselves6. 

On  the  death  of  Eustathius  (c.  1 192-4)  an  eloquent  panegyric 
on  that  ‘  last  survivor  of  the  golden  age  ’  was  pro¬ 
nounced  by  his  former  pupil,  Michael  Acominatus,  A^minatus 
who  apparently  became  archbishop  of  Athens  in 
the  same  year  as  that  in  which  Eustathius  was  called  to  Thessa¬ 
lonica  (1175).  His  brother,  Nicetas  Acominatus,  distinguished 

1  Reitzenstein,  Et.  p.  252  n.  2  c.  53  (vi  105  Bury). 

3  Euthymius,  ap.  Tafel,  De  Thessal.  p.  399. 

4  Finlay,  iii  215. 

5  ed.  Tafel  (1832);  Bekker  (1842);  also  in  Migne,  cxxxv. 

6  De  einendanda  vita  monastica,  c.  128  (quoted  on  p.  377).  Krumbacher, 

§  2212. 


412 


THE  BYZANTINE  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


himself  as  a  statesman  and  as  the  historian  of  - the  years  1180 
to  1206,  while  his  own  tenure  of  the  see  of  Athens  is  the  brightest 
page  in  the  mediaeval  history  of  Greece.  On  reaching  his  see, 
he  tells  us  of  the  ruined  condition  of  Athens  and  the  desolation 
of  Attica ;  but,  on  taking  up  his  official  residence  on  the  platform 
of  the  Acropolis,  he  must  have  felt  that  few  bishops  in  Christen¬ 
dom  had  such  a  glorious  cathedral  as  the  Parthenon.  In  his 
inaugural  discourse,  he  describes  his  audience  as  the  genuine 
descendants  of  the  Athenians  of  old,  eulogises  Athens  as  the 
mother  of  eloquence  and  wisdom,  and  as  indebted  for  her  fame 
not  to  the  memorials  of  byegone  times  (among  which  he  describes 
the  choragic  monument  of  Lysicrates  as  the  ‘  Lantern  of  Demo¬ 
sthenes  ’),  but  to  the  virtue  of  her  citizens.  But  he  soon  becomes 
conscious  that  his  eloquent  discourse  has  been  imperfectly  under¬ 
stood  by  the  Athenians  of  his  day  ;  and,  as  time  goes  on,  he 
is  oppressed  by  the  contrast  between  the  Athens  of  the  past  and 
of  the  present ;  he  sees  the  sheep  feeding  amid  the  scanty  ruins 
of  the  Painted  Porch.  The  charm  of  the  Attic  landscape  still 
remains,  and,  from  the  height  of  Hymettus,  he  can  view,  in 
one  direction,  the  whole  of  Attica,  and,  in  the  other,  the  Cyclades, 
spread  out  like  a  map  before  him ;  but  he  feels  that  the  ancient 
race  of  orators  and  philosophers  has  vanished ;  he  composes  the 
only  extant  poem  of  lamentation  over  the  downfall  of  Athens1; 
and  he  consoles  himself  with  the  books  which  he  has  brought 
from  Byzantium,  with  Homer  and  Thucydides,  with  Euclid, 
Nicander  and  Galen,  all  the  volumes  that  he  finds  in  the  official 
library  of  his  see  being  contained  in  two  chests  beside  the  altar 
in  the  Parthenon.  On  the  capture  of  Constantinople  during  the 
Fourth  Crusade  in  1204,  Athens  was  handed  over  to  the  Franks 
and  became  a  see  of  the  Latin  Church,  and  Michael  withdrew  to 
the  neighbouring  island  of  Ceos,  where  he  died  in  1220  within 
sight  of  the  shores  of  Attica2. 

Michael  Acominatus  had  not  yet  ceased  to  be  archbishop 
of  Athens,  when  certain  ‘  Greek  philosophers  of  grave  aspect  ’ 

1  Boissonade,  Anec.  Gr.  v  374. 

2  Krumbacher,  §  1992,  and  esp.  Gregorovius,  Stadt  A  then,  i  204 — 227, 
240—4- 


XXIII.] 


GREGORIUS  CORINTHIUS. 


413 


are  stated  by  Matthew  Paris  to  have  arrived  from  Athens  at  the 
court  of  King  John  (c.  1202)  \  They  were  doubtless  monks 
from  the  East,  but  they  were  not  allowed  to  remain 
in  England.  Matthew  Paris1 2  elsewhere  assures  us  England  and 
that  his  older  contemporary,  John  of  Basingstoke, 
archdeacon  of  Leicester,  informed  Robert  Grosseteste,  the  learned 
bishop  of  Lincoln,  that,  while  he  was  studying  at  Athens,  he 
had  seen  and  heard  certain  things  unknown  to  the  Latins.  He 
had  there  found  a  copy  of  the  Testament  of  the  Twelve  Patriarchs , 
which  the  bishop  of  Lincoln  caused  to  be  translated  into  Latin 
by  a  monk  of  St  Albans ;  and  he  had  himself  translated  into 
that  language  a  Greek  Grammar.  During  his  visit,  he  had  also 
learnt  much  from  Constantina,  the  daughter  of  the  archbishop 
of  Athens,  a  girl  of  less  than  twenty,  who  (besides  being  familiar 
with  the  trivium  and  quadrivium )  could  predict  pestilences  and 
earthquakes  as  well  as  eclipses.  As  the  archdeacon  died  in  1252, 
the  only  Greek  archbishop  of  Athens,  who  could  have  been  the 
father  of  this  learned  lady,  must  have  been  Michael  Acominatus. 
But  the  latter  assures  us  that  he  had  no  children ;  and,  while 
we  may  well  believe  that  John  of  Basingstoke  really  visited  Athens 
and  brought  some  Greek  mss  to  England,  we  must  conclude  that 
there  is  some  mistake  as  to  the  identity  of  the  learned  lady  of 
whom  he  had  often  spoken  to  Matthew  Paris3. 

Another  learned  ecclesiastic  of  this  age  is  Gregorius,  arch¬ 
bishop  of  Corinth  (c.  1200),  author  of  an  extant 
work  on  Greek  Dialects.  This  is  founded  partly  corinthiisS 
on  Tryphon  (cent,  i  b.c.)  and  Joannes  Philoponus 
(cent,  vi  a.d.),  on  scholia  and  glossaries  to  Pindar,  Aristophanes 
and  especially  Theocritus,  and  probably  also  on  the  author’s 
independent  reading  of  Herodotus,  as  well  as  Pindar  and  Theo¬ 
critus.  It  aims  at  completeness  but  is  defective  in  arrangement ; 
its  popularity  is,  however,  abundantly  proved  by  its  preservation 
in  numerous  manuscripts4. 


1  Hist.  Anglorum  (Minor),  ed.  Madden,  iii  64. 

2  Chronica  Maiora ,  ed.  Luard,  v  285 

3  Gregorovius,  l.  c .,  i  231-4. 

4  ed.  G.  H.  Schaefer  (1811) ;  cp.  Krumbacher,  §  2  482. 


414 


THE  BYZANTINE  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Historians 


Rhetoricians 


History  in  the  twelfth  century  is  represented  by  the  three 
Chroniclers,  Constantine  Manasses,  whose  6733 
lines  of  accentual  verse  begin  with  the  Creation 
and  end  with  the  year  1081 ;  and  Zonaras  and  Glykas,  both  of 
whom  close  their  prose  chronicles  in  11181.  The  two  principal 
historians  of  this  time  are  Cinnamus,  whose  work  has  survived 
in  an  abstract  extending  from  1118  to  1176;  and  Nicetas 
Acominatus,  whose  great  history  in  21  books  covers  the  years 
between  1180  and  1206  and  thus  includes  the  Latin  conquest 
of  Constantinople2. 

His  brother  Michael,  the  archbishop  of  Athens,  may  be 
classed  among  the  rhetoricians  of  this  century, 
which  also  claims  Michael  Italicus  ( fl .  1147-66), 
many  of  whose  Letters  are  addressed  to  members  of  the  imperial 
house  and  to  the  leading  men  of  the  time.  In  one  of  them 
he  pulls  to  pieces  a  work  composed  by  an  unnamed  patriarch 
of  Constantinople,  pointing  out  that  nearly  the  whole  of  it  is 
copied  from  Chrysostom,  Basil  and  Gregory  of  Nyssa.  In  another 
he  writes  to  the  poor  scholar,  Theodorus  Prodromus,  who  hand¬ 
somely  calls  his  correspondent  a  second  Plato3.  Another  prolific 
rhetorician  of  this  age  is  Nicephorus  Basilakes,  whose  lament 
over  his  brother  who  fell  in  the  Sicilian  war  probably  belongs 
to  the  year  1 1 5  5  4. 

Among  ecclesiastical  writers,  Nicolaus  of  Methone  (fl.  1143- 
80)  throws  a  considerable  amount  of  light  on  the 
of  Methone  theological  controversies  of  the  time,  but  his  reputa¬ 
tion  has  suffered  since  the  repeated  discoveries  of 
his  unacknowledged  indebtedness  to  Photius  and  others.  His 
critical  examination  of  Proclus  is  borrowed  almost  verbatim  from 
Procopius  of  Gaza;  but,  although  it  is  destitute  of  originality, 
it  shows  that,  owing  to  the  renewed  interest  in  ancient  philosophy 
which  arose  in  the  twelfth  century,  there  was  a  special  call  for 
defending  the  plain  teaching  of  the  Church  against  the  subtleties 
of  Neo-Platonism5. 


1  Krumbacher,  §§  154-62. 

2  ib.  §§  122-32. 


ib.  §  1972. 


4  ib-  P-  4732. 

5  ib.  §  222. 


XXIII.]  CONSTANTINOPLE  AND  THE  WEST. 


415 


Empire  of 
Nicaea  ; 
Blemmydes 
and  Acro- 
polites 


During  the  time  of  the  Empire  of  Nicaea,  and  the  rule  of 
the  house  of  Lascaris,  i.e.  from  the  loss  of  Con¬ 
stantinople  in  1204  to  its  recovery  in  1261,  the 
most  notable  name  in  literature  was  that  of  Nice- 
phorus  Blemmydes  (< c .  1197 — 1272),  who  is  a 
philosopher,  as  well  as  a  theologian,  geographer, 
rhetorician  and  poet.  His  manual  of  Logic  and  Physics  has 
been  preserved  in  many  mss1.  The  contemporary  historian  of 
this  age  is  Georgius  Acropolites  (1217 — 1282),  a  dignified  per¬ 
sonage,  who  avoids  vulgarisms,  and,  instead  of  condescending  to 
the  use  of  yaSupo?  (yatSapos),  the  vulgar  Greek  word  for  an  ass, 
prefers  its  grander  etymological  counterpart  deiSapos,  ‘the  ever- 
beaten  one  ’ 2.  But  the  Greek  Empire  of  Nicaea  presents  us  with 
nothing  of  importance  in  the  history  of  Scholarship,  and  the  same 
is  true  of  the  contemporary  Latin  Empire  of  Constantinople 

(1204-61).  Learned  men  in  the  West  had  long  constanti 
regarded  the  capital  of  the  East  as  the  treasure-  nopie  and 

r  the  West 

house  of  ancient  literature.  In  the  first  half  of 
the  tenth  century,  the  arch-priest  Leo  of  Naples  had  brought 
back  with  him  a  ms  of  the  legend  of  Alexander  by  Pseudo-Calli- 
sthenes,  and  his  Latin  translation  of  the  same  had  supplied  a  new 
theme  to  the  poets  of  the  West3.  In  1167,  one  Guillaume  of 
Gap,  a  student  of  medicine  who  became  a  monk,  was  sent  to 
Constantinople  by  the  Abbe  of  St  Denis  in  search  of  Greek  mss, 
but  it  is  probable  that  the  mss  with  which  he  returned  were  only 
connected  with  ‘Dionysius  the  Areopagite’4.  When  the  Normans 
took  Thessalonica  (1185),  the  collections  of  books,  which  they 
sold  for  a  mere  trifle,  found  Italians  ready  to  purchase  them5. 
Even  before  the  Latin  conquest  of  Constantinople,  the  Italians 
are  said  to  have  bought  up  mss  and  sent  off  whole  ship-loads 
of  them6.  Great  havoc  was  doubtless  inflicted  by  that  conquest, 
and  by  the  three  conflagrations  by  which  it  was  attended.  On 


1  Krumbacher,  §  1862.  2  ib.  p.  287s. 

3  Zacher,  Pseudo-Callisthenes  (1867). 

4  Jourdain,  Recherches ,  p.  46;  Delisle  in  Journal  des  Savants ,  1890, 

725—739- 

5  Eustathius,  De  Thess.  a  Latinis  ca/>ta,  c.  135. 

6  Michael  Acominatus,  i  17  (Gregorovius,  /.  c.,  i  286). 


416 


THE  BYZANTINE  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


19  August,  1203,  the  second  of  these  conflagrations,  which 
originated  in  the  wilful  act  of  a  few  Flemish  soldiers,  lasted  for 
two  days,  when  ‘  splendid  palaces,  filled  with  works  of  ancient 
art  and  antique  classic  manuscripts,  were  destroyed  ’  \  ‘  Without 

computing  the  extent  of  our  loss,  we  may  drop  a  tear’  (says 
Gibbon)  ‘over  the  libraries  that  have  perished  in  the  triple  fire 
of  Constantinople  ’1  2.  After  the  capture  of  the  city  (13  April, 
1204),  when  the  Franks  passed  in  procession  through  the  streets, 
they  showed  their  contempt  for  a  people  of  scribes  and  scholars 
by  displaying  a  pen  and  an  ink-horn  and  a  sheet  of  paper,  but 
the  Greek  historian  of  these  events  had  his  revenge  when  he 
denounced  the  conquerors  as  ‘  ignorant  and  utterly  illiterate 
barbarians’3.  During  the  seven  and  fifty  years  of  the  Latin 
emperors,  there  was  probably  a  certain  amount  of  literary  inter¬ 
course  between  the  East  and  the  West.  In  1205,  Pope  Inno¬ 
cent  III  exhorted  the  ‘  Masters  and  Scholars  of  the  University 
of  Paris  ’  to  go  to  Greece  and  revive  the  study  of  literature  in 
the  land  of  its  birth4.  Philip  Augustus  founded  a  college  on  the 
Seine  where  the  Greeks  of  Constantinople  might  study  the  Latin 
language5.  Lastly,  in  1209,  according  to  Guillaume  le  Breton, 
certain  works  on  Metaphysics,  composed  (it  was  said)  by 
Aristotle,  had  recently  been  brought  from  Constantinople  and 
translated  into  Latin,  but  these  libelli  (he  adds)  were  ordered 
to  be  burnt  as  likely  to  foster  heresy6. 

The  Byzantine  age  ends  with  the  Palaeologi,  who  held  sway 

Scholars  between  the  recovery  of  Constantinople  from  the 

under  the  Franks  in  1261  and  its  capture  by  the  Turks  in 

1453.  The  scholars  who  lived  under  that  dynasty 
are  the  precursors  of  a  new  era.  They  differ  widely  from  those 
who  lived  under  the  Macedonian  (867 — 1057)  and  Comnenian 
(1057 — 1185)  dynasties,  in  their  treatment  of  classical  texts. 

1  Finlay,  iii  261,  after  Nicetas,  356,  and  Villehardouin,  82. 

2  c.  60  ult. 

3  Nicetas,  aypaiifiarois  fiapfiapois  Kal  riXeov  dvaXtpa^riTois,  Gibbon,  c.  60 
(vi  409  Bury). 

4  ‘...in  Graeciam  accedentes,  ibi  studeretis  literarum  studia  reformare, 
unde  noscitur  exordium  habuisse  ’  (Jourdain,  Recherches ,  p.  48). 

5  ib.  p.  49.  6  ib.  p.  187. 


XXIII.] 


PLANUDES. 


417 


While  most  of  the  mss  from  the  ninth  to  the  twelfth  centuries 
(such  as  the  Laurentian  ms  of  Aeschylus,  Sophocles  and  Apol¬ 
lonius  Rhodius,  and  the  Ravenna  ms  of  Aristophanes)  maintain 
the  tradition  of  the  Alexandrian  and  the  Roman  ages,  those  of 
the  thirteenth  and  following  centuries  show  that  Byzantine  scholars 
were  beginning  to  deal  with  old  Greek  texts  in  a  capricious 
manner,  and  to  tamper  with  the  metres  of  ancient  poets  with 
a  view  to  bringing  them  into  conformity  with  metrical  systems 
of  their  own  invention1.  The  scholars  of  these  centuries  have 
less  in  common  with  Photius,  Arethas  and  Eustathius  than  with 
the  earliest  representatives  of  the  revival  of  learning  in  the  West, 
who  are  the  inheritors  of  the  latest  traditions  of  the  Byzantine  age2. 

Among  the  late  Byzantine  scholars  who  had  much  in  common 
with  the  precursors  of  the  Renaissance  the  first 

.  A  .  Planudes 

in  order  of  time  is  the  monk  Maximus  Planudes 
(c.  1260 — 1310).  He  had  an  exceptionally  good  knowledge  of 
Latin,  having  possibly  been  led  to  acquire  that  language  by  the 
constant  controversies  between  the  Greek  and  Latin  Churches. 
It  was  probably  owing  to  his  knowledge  of  Latin  that  he  was 
sent  as  envoy  to  Venice  in  1296.  Among  the  many  Latin  works, 
which  he  translated  into  Greek,  were  Caesar’s  Bellurn  Gallicum , 
Cicero’s  Somnium  Scipionis ,  Ovid’s  Metamorphoses  and  Heroides , 
and  the  smaller  grammar  of  Donatus.  His  translation  of  the 
Heroides  was  founded  on  a  ms  now  lost,  which  must  have  been 
superior  to  our  existing  mss.  The  value  of  this  translation 
is  shown  in  the  late  Mr  Arthur  Palmer’s  edition  (1898).  Thus, 
in  vi  47,  quid  mihi  cum  Minyis,  quid  cum  Tritonide  pinu ,  the 
version  of  Planudes  alone  has  preserved  the  true  reading  Dodonide 
which  is  confirmed  by  AwSomSos...<£?7yov,  used  to  describe  the 
material  of  the  cutwater  of  the  Argo  by  Apollonius  Rhodius, 
i  527  and  iv  583.  His  independent  works  included  a  dialogue 

1  Wilamowitz,  Eur.  Her.  i  1941,  ‘  Diese  Byzantiner  sind  eigentlich  gar 
nicht  als  Schreiber,  sondern  als  Emendatoren  aufzufassen ;  sie  sind  nicht  die 
Collegen  der  braven  stupiden  Monche,  die  treufleissig  nachmalten,  was  sie 
nicht  nur  nicht  verstanden,  sondern  auch  nicht  zu  verstehen  meinten,  sondern 
sie  sind  unsere  Collegen... Sie  haben  so  manchen  Vers  fiir  immer  geheilt,  und 
noch  viel  ofter  das  Auge  von  Jahrhunderten  geblendet.’ 

2  Krumbacher,  p.  5412  f. 


S. 


27 


418 


THE  BYZANTINE  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


on  Grammar  with  a  treatise  on  Syntax 1 ;  a  collection  of  Letters, 
of  special  interest  in  connexion  with  the  writer’s  studies2;  a  life 
of  Aesop,  with  a  prose  paraphrase  of  the  ‘Fables’;  scholia  on 
Theocritus  and  Hermogenes  ;  a  work  on  Indian  mathematics, 
and  (probably)  the  scholia  on  the  first  two  books  of  the  Arithmetic 
of  Diophantus.  Among  his  compilations  were  historical  and 
geographical  excerpts  from  Plato,  Aristotle,  Strabo,  Pausanias, 
Dion  Cassius,  Synesius,  Dion  Chrysostom  and  Joannes  Lydus, 
some  of  them  important  in  connexion  with  textual  criticism. 
He  also  abridged  and  rearranged  (with  a  few  additions)  the 
Anthology  of  Constantine  Cephalas  (p.  397),  thus  forming  the 
collection  of  Greek  epigrams  called  the  Anthologia  Planudea, 
the  only  Greek  Anthology  known  to  scholars  before  the  recovery 
of  the  Anthology  of  Cephalas  in  1607.  The  Planudean  Anthology, 
still  preserved  in  the  Library  of  St  Mark’s  at  Venice  (no.  481),  is 
in  the  hand  of  Planudes  himself.  It  ends  with  his  name,  and 
with  the  date,  Sept.  1302  (i.e.  1301  a.d.)3. 

Among  his  eminent  contemporaries  was  John  Beccus,  patriarch 
from  1275  to  1282,  who  strongly  supported  the  union  of  the 
Eastern  and  Western  Churches,  even  dying  in  prison  for  that 
cause  in  12934.  The  chief  opponent  of  Beccus  was  Gregory 
of  Cyprus,  patriarch  from  1283  to  1289,  whose  Life  and  Letters 
supply  a  pleasing  picture  of  his  times,  while  his  interest  in 
education  is  proved  by  his  mythological  stories  and  by  his  prose 
paraphrases  of  Aesop 5.  Gregory’s  devoted  pupil  and  strong 
adherent,  Nicephorus  Chumnus  ( c .  1261 — c.  1328), 
Chunmus>rUS  was  connected  with  the  royal  house,  his  daughter 
having  been  married  to  the  son  of  Andronicus  II. 
He  left  public  life  for  the  retirement  of  the  monastery  in  1320. 
His  literary  works  were  mainly  directed  against  Plato  and  the 
Neo-Platonists,  and  especially  against  Plotinus;  but  he  also  attacks 
the  Aristotelian  philosophy.  It  thus  appears  that  the  controversy 
on  Plato  and  Aristotle,  which  was  one  of  the  characteristics  of 
the  Renaissance,  had  its  counterpart  as  early  as  the  Byzantine 


1  Bachmann,  Anecd.  Gr.  ii  1 — 166. 

2  ed.  Treu,  Breslau  (1890). 

3  Krumbacher,  §  2  2  3s. 

6  ib>  §§  30,  2022. 


4  ib.  §  29s. 


XXIII.]  MOSCHOPULUS.  THOMAS  MAGISTER. 


419 


age.  In  this  respect,  amongst  others,  Nicephorus  Chumnus  is 
a  precursor  of  the  Renaissance.  In  his  rhetorical  writings  he 
insists  on  the  maintenance  of  the  Attic  standard  of  style,  finding 
his  own  models  in  Isocrates  and  Aristides,  and  also  in  his  master, 
Gregory  of  Cyprus.  His  rhetorical  manner  often  mars  the  effect 
of  his  Letters ,  some  of  which  are  professedly  written  in  the 
Laconic  and  others  in  the  Attic  style ;  while  a  certain  monotony 
results  from  the  frequent  recurrence  of  the  same  construction  and 
the  same  combination  of  connecting  particles1. 

Maximus  Planudes  counted  among  his  pupils  and  friends 
Manuel  Moschopulus  ifl.  1300),  the  nephew  of 

A  '  '  .  Moschopulus 

an  archbishop  of  Crete.  The  reputation  of  Mos¬ 
chopulus  is  largely  due  to  his  having  extracted  from  the  two 
volumes  of  an  anonymous  grammatical  work  a  catechism  of 
Greek  Grammar,  which  had  a  considerable  influence  during  the 
early  Renaissance 2.  He  also  compiled  a  school-lexicon  of  Attic 
Greek,  besides  brief  notes  on  the  first  two  books  of  the  Iliad , 
as  well  as  on  Hesiod3,  Pindar’s  Olympian  Odes,  Euripides  and 
Theocritus4.  His  influence  on  the  Byzantine  text  of  Pindar  was 
unsatisfactory.  Among  the  mss  of  Pindar  a  ‘family’  of  forty-three, 
most  of  them  containing  the  Olympian  Odes  alone,  is  regarded  as 
representing  the  ‘badly  interpolated  edition  of  Moschopulus’5. 

Among  his  contemporaries  was  Thomas  Magister,  secretary 
to  Andronicus  II  (1282 — 1328).  After  becoming 
a  monk,  and  assuming  the  name  of  Theodulus,  he  Magister3 
devoted  himself  to  the  special  study  of  the  ancient 
Classics.  He  was  the  author  of  several  school-books,  the  chief 
of  which  is  a  ‘  selection  of  Attic  nouns  and  verbs  ’ 6  founded 
on  Phrynichus,  Ammonius,  Herodian,  Moeris  and  others,  with 
many  additions  from  his  own  reading,  especially  in  Herodotus, 
Thucydides,  Aristides  and  Synesius.  He  also  wrote  scholia  on 

1  Krumbacher,  §  2032. 

2  On  its  relation  to  the  Erotemata  of  Chrysoloras,  Chalcondyles  etc.,  cp. 
Voltz,  in  Jahn’s  Jahrb.  139  (1889)  579 — 99;  and  Hartfelder’s  Melanchthon 
(1889),  p.  255. 

3  Facsimile  on  p.  428.  4  Krumbacher,  §  224s. 

5  Seymour’s  Selected  Odes ,  p.  xxiii ;  Tycho  Mommsen’s  ed.,  p.  xxiv  f. 

6  ed.  Ritschl,  1832. 


27 — 2 


420 


THE  BYZANTINE  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


Theodorus 

Metochites 


Aeschylus,  Sophocles  and  Euripides,  and  on  three  plays  of 
Aristophanes  {Plutus,  Nudes ,  Ranae).  The  scholia  on  Pindar, 
which  bear  his  name,  are  ascribed  by  Lehrs1  to  Triclinius. 

Another  scholar  of  the  same  age  was  Theodorus  Metochites 
(d.  1332),  who,  like  his  eulogist  Thomas  Magister, 
was  in  the  service  of  Andronicus  II.  Though 
inferior  to  the  foremost  scholars  of  former  genera¬ 
tions,  such  as  Photius  and  Psellus,  he  was  one  of  the  most 
learned  men  of  his  time.  His  works  include  Philosophical  and 
Historical  Miscellanies,  with  excerpts  from  more  than  seventy 
philosophers  and  historians,  which  are  often  of  textual  importance. 
His  erudition  is  praised  in  the  highest  terms  by  his  pupil, 
Nicephorus  Gregoras2,  a  man  of  encyclopaedic  learning,  who  is 
best  known  as  a  historian,  though  he  is  also  the  writer  of  a 
commentary  on  the  wanderings  of  Odysseus,  and  of  many  works 
still  remaining  in  manuscript,  including  a  treatise  on  Grammar 
and  Orthography3. 

The  foremost  textual  critic  of  the  age  of  the  Palaeologi  was 
Demetrius  Triclinius  (early  in  cent.  xiv).  He  ex¬ 
pounded  and  emended  (and  not  unfrequently 
corrupted)  the  texts  of  Hesiod,  Pindar,  Aeschylus,  Sophocles, 
Euripides  {Hecuba,  Orestes,  Phoenissae) 4  and  Theocritus.  His 
scholia  on  Aeschylus  and  Hesiod  (<r.  1316-20)  still  exist  in  his 
own  handwriting  in  Naples  and  Venice  respectively5.  His 
transcript  of  Hesiod  bears  the  date  13166;  that  of  Aphthonius 
(at  New  College,  Oxford)  is  dated  1298.  His  ms  of  Aeschylus 
was  allied  to  a  Venice  ms  of  cent,  xv,  while  that  of  Pindar  was 
copied  from  the  Florentine  ms  D  (cent,  xiii — xiv)7.  He  acquired 
a  considerable  knowledge  of  metre,  but  was  misled  to  some 
extent  by  the  changes  of  pronunciation  which  had  come  over  the 
Greek  language  in  the  course  of  the  Byzantine  age.  His  textual 


Triclinius 


1  Pindarscholien ,  97 — 9.  Krumbacher,  §  225s. 

2  vii  11  p.  272  ed.  Bonn,  (3i[3\iodr)Kr)  yap  fjv  £p.\pvxos  ral  tCjv  ^rjrovfilvuv 
irpbxeipos  eviropla  (Krumbacher,  §  2  262). 

3  ib.  §  1282. 

4  Wilamowitz,  Eur.  Her.  i  1941,  ‘Triklinios  ist  in  Wahrheit  eher  als  der 

erste  moderne  Tragikerkritiker  zu  flihren  denn  als  ein  zuverlassiger  Vertreter 
der  Ueberlieferung.’  5  Krumbacher,  §  227s. 

6  Facsimile  on  p.  428.  •  7  Wilamowitz,  /.  c. 


XXIII.] 


TRICLINIUS.  MANUEL  PHILES. 


421 


Sophonias 


Leon 

Magentinus 


emendations  differ  widely  in  value.  In  the  case  of  Pindar  in 
particular,  ‘he  altered  the  text  to  conform  to  his  crude  rules 
of  grammar  and  metric.  His  notes  are  full  of  conceit  and  self- 
assertion.  Their  value  has  been  said  to  be  chiefly  negative ;  any 
text  is  suspicious  which  contains  the  readings  recommended  by 
him  ’ l.  His  edition  is  now  represented  in  a  family  of  twenty- 
eight  mss  2. 

Early  in  the  fourteenth  century  the  monk  Sophonias  wrote 
paraphrases  of  Aristotle’s  Categories,  Prior  Analytics, 

Sophistici  Elenchi,  De  Animaz ,  De  Memoria  and 
De  Somno,  which  were  once  attributed  to  Themistius  and  owe 
their  value  solely  to  their  excerpts  from  the  best  of  the  earlier 
commentaries.  In  the  same  century  scholia  on  the  whole  of 
the  Organon  were  compiled  by  Leon  Magentinus, 
metropolitan  of  Mytilene4.  The  rhetorician  and 
grammarian,  John  Glykys,  who  was  highly  esteemed 
by  his  pupil,  the  historian  Nicephorus  Gregoras,  and  was  for  a 
short  time  patriarch  of  Constantinople  (1319),  wrote 
a  Syntax  more  remarkable  for  its  lucidity  than  for 
its  learning,  in  which  he  quotes  largely  from  Homer,  Thucydides, 
Plato  and  Demosthenes,  as  well  as  from  the  Septuagint 5. 
Among  the  miscellaneous  works  of  John  Pediasimus 
{pi.  1282 — 1341),  professor  of  philosophy  at  Con¬ 
stantinople,  were  some  scholia  on  Hesiod’s  Theogony  and  Shield 
of  Hercules ,  and  on  the  Syrinx  of  Theocritus6.  Our  list  of  late 
Byzantine  scholars  may  here  close  with  the  name 
of  Manuel  Chrysoloras,  who  was  born  a  century  chrysoioras 
before  the  fall  of  Constantinople,  and  died  forty 
years  before  that  event,  having  meanwhile  played  a  leading  part 
in  the  revival  of  Greek  learning  in  Italy. 

Among  the  late  Byzantine  poets,  the  counterpart  of  Theodorus 
Prodromus  in  the  twelfth  century  is  Manuel  Philes 
in  the  fourteenth  {c.  1275 — 1345).  The  favourite 
metre  for  his  dialogues,  and  for  his  writings  on  zoology  and  on 


Glykys 


Pediasimus 


Poets 


1  Seymour’s  Selected  Odes ,  p.  xxii. 

2  Tycho  Mommsen’s  ed.  p.  xxx  f. 

3  ed.  Hayduck,  1883. 

5  ib.  §  2  49s. 


4  Krumbacher,  §  1822. 
6  ib.  §  2282. 


422 


THE  BYZANTINE  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


works  of  art,  is  the  iambic  trimeter,  in  his  use  of  which  he  never 
allows  the  accent  to  fall  on  the  final  syllable1.  While  Philes 
remains  true  to  the  classical  types  of  metre  and  language,  his 
contemporary  Constantine  Hermoniacus  was  prompted  by  a 
despot  of  Epirus  (1323-35)  to  produce  in  the  language  of  daily 
life  a  new  version  of  the  Iliad  written  in  short  trochaic  lines 
consisting  of  only  four  accentual  feet2.  Philes  wrote  a  poem 
in  memory  of  his  patron  Pachymeres  (1242 — c.  1310),  whose 
.  great  historical  work  continues  from  1261  to  1308 

the  ample  narrative  of  Acropolites,  while  his  minor 
writings  include  a  treatise  on  the  quadrivium  and  an  abstract 
of  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle3.  Half  a  century  later  we  have 
the  ecclesiastical  historian,  Xanthopulus  (1295 — c.  1360),  whose 
history  practically  ends  with  610  a.d.  He  was  coeval  with  the 
emperor  John  Cantacuzenus  (1295 — 1383),  who,  on  his  abdication 
in  1355,  withdrew  to  a  monastery,  where  he  composed  a  history 
of  the  years  1320  to  1356,  in  which  he  records  ‘not  a  confession, 
but  an  apology,  of  the  life  of  an  ambitious  statesman’4.  He  was 
also  coeval  with  Nicephorus  Gregoras  (1295 — c.  1360),  who  was 
educated  under  Theodorus  Metochites,  and  (like  Pachymeres) 
showed  a  special  partiality  for  controversial  theology  while  writing, 
in  a  style  modelled  on  that  of  Plato,  the  history  of  the  period 
between  the  Latin  conquest  of  Constantinople  and  the  end  of 
his  own  life  (1204 — 1359) 5.  After  these  historians  a  whole 

century  elapses  before  we  reach  the  Athenian  Laonicus  Chalcon- 
dyles  (jd.  1446-63),  a  brother  of  the  first  modern  editor  of  the 
Iliad  and  an  imitator  of  Herodotus  and  Thucydides,  who  begins 
with  1298  and  ends  in  1463  his  account  of  the  expansion  of  the 
Ottoman  power;  Ducas^  who  describes,  in  a  literary  form  of 
popular  Greek,  the  period  from  1341  to  1462  ;  Phrantzes 
(1401 — c.  1477),  w^o  writes,  in  a  style  intermediate  between  that 
of  Chalcondyles  and  Ducas,  the  history  of  the  years  1258 — 1476; 
and  Critobulus  of  Imbros,  an  imitator  of  Thucydides,  who,  in 
sharp  contrast  with  Ducas  and  Chalcondyles,  avowedly  takes  the 

1  Krumbacher,  §  324s.  2  ib.  §  37 12. 

3  ib.  §  1 26s. 

4  Gibbon,  c.  63  (vi  489  Bury). 

5  Krumbacher,  §  1282. 


XXIII.] 


HISTORIANS  AND  RHETORICIANS. 


423 


Turkish  point  of  view  in  tracing  the  victorious  career  of  the 
conqueror  of  Constantinople1. 

The  rhetoricians  of  this  age  include  the  essayist  Demetrius 
Cydones  (c.  1325 — c.  1396),  who  studied  Latin  at 

'  V  .  Rhetoricians 

Milan,  and  imitated  Plato  not  only  in  his  lament 
over  those  who  fell  in  the  civil  feuds  of  Thessalonica  (1346),  but 
also  in  his  appeal  to  the  Greeks  to  be  at  unity  among  themselves 
and  with  the  Latin  Church  (1369)2.  They  further  include  the 
emperor  Manuel  Palaeologus  (1350—1425),  who  vainly  visited 
Italy,  France  and  England  (1399 — 1402)  in  quest  of  aid  against 
the  Turks.  In  the  precepts  addressed  to  his  son,  he  imitates 
Isocrates ;  and,  in  one  of  his  Letters ,  we  find  him  thanking 
Demetrius  Cydones  for  a  copy  of  the  lexicon  of  Suidas,  which, 
arriving  at  a  time  when  the  emperor  was  short  of  funds,  is 
humorously  described  as  having  made  him  rich  in  words,  but 
not  in  wealth3.  Lastly,  we  have  the  ‘rhetorical  epitome’  of 
Matthaeus  Camariotes,  who  continued  to  teach  Philosophy, 
Rhetoric  and  Grammar,  even  when  the  Turks  were  threatening 
Constantinople  (1450),  and  who  begins  his  rhetorical  monody 
on  the  troubles  of  his  time  by  sighing  with  the  Psalmist  for  ‘  the 
wings  of  a  dove  ’ 4. 

The  ecclesiastical  writers  of  this  age  are  mainly  absorbed  in 
the  controversy  with  the  Hesychastae,  or  Quietists, 
as  represented  primarily  by  Gregorius  Palamas  vvritersiaStlCal 
(d.  1349),  who,  in  quest  of  a  life  of  contemplation, 
left  the  court  of  Constantinople  for  the  monasteries  of  Mount 
Athos.  Among  his  supporters  in  this  controversy  were  Philotheus 
and  Nilus  Cabasilas,  while  his  principal  opponents  were  Nicephorus 
Gregoras  and  John  Cyparissiotes,  who  continued  the  attack  on 
the  Quietists  begun  by  the  Calabrian  monk,  Barlaam  (Jt.  1339-48). 
Nicolaus  Cabasilas,  the  nephew  of  Nilus,  and  the  last  of  the 
great  Greek  mystics,  died  in  1371.  A  century  later  saw  the  death 
of  Bessarion,  who  meanwhile  had  transferred  his  allegiance  from 
the  Eastern  to  the  Western  Church,  and  had  done  much  for  the 
promotion  of  Greek  Scholarship  in  Italy  as  a  patron  of  learning, 


1  Krumbacher,  §§  I32-52. 
3  ib.  §  2102. 


2  ib.  §  2072. 

4  ib.  pp.  451,  4982. 


424 


THE  BYZANTINE  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


as  an  enthusiastic  student  of  Plato,  and  as  founder  of  the  Library 
of  St  Mark’s  at  Venice. 

Of  the  extant  remains  of  Byzantine  literature,  apart  from 
theological  works,  nearly  half  belong  to  the  domain 
Scholarship  of  Scholarship  in  the  widest  sense  of  the  term. 

The  scholars  of  the  Byzantine,  and  of  the  latter 
part  of  the  Roman  age,  are  unsystematic  and  diffuse,  are  deficient 
in  originality  of  thought  and  independence  of  character,  and  are 
only  too  ready  to  rest  satisfied  with  a  merely  mechanical  repro¬ 
duction  of  the  learning  of  the  past.  In  matters  of  Scholarship 
they  seldom  show  a  real  advance,  or  even  display  a  sound  and 
impartial  judgement.  But,  if  they  are  themselves  to  be  judged 
in  a  spirit  of  fairness  and  candour,  they  cannot  be  compared 
with  the  great  Alexandrian  critics,  from  whom  they  are  parted 
by  a  thousand  years,  in  the  course  of  which  the  cultivation  of 
Scholarship  was  attended  with  ever  increasing  difficulty  and  dis¬ 
couragement.  A  Planudes  or  a  Triclinius  cannot  reasonably  be 
judged  by  the  same  standard  as  an  Aristophanes  or  an  Aristarchus ; 
and  a  Moschopulus  has  as  little  as  a  Melanchthon  in  common 
with  the  great  Alexandrians.  Even  the  Byzantine  scholars  of 
the  ninth  and  eleventh  centuries  did  not  enjoy  the  advantages 
of  the  Alexandrian  age,  or  of  our  own ;  but  they  served  to 
maintain  a  continuity  of  tradition  by  which  the  learning  of 
Alexandria  has  been  transmitted  to  Europe.  They  must  be  tried 
by  the  standard  of  their  own  contemporaries  in  other  lands : 
a  Photius  must  be  compared  with  an  Alcuin ;  a  Psellus  with 
an  Anselm.  The  erudite  Byzantines  who  lived  under  the  dynasty 
of  the  Palaeologi,  men  like  Planudes,  Moschopulus,  and  Theo- 
dorus  Metochites,  will  be  seen  in  their  true  light,  if  they  are 
regarded  as  among  the  earliest  precursors  of  the  Renaissance. 
For  it  must  be  remembered  that,  for  the  revival  of  Greek  learning, 
we  are  indebted  not  only  to  the  Greek  refugees  who  in  the  middle 
of  the  fifteenth  century  were  driven  from  Constantinople  to  the 
hospitable  shores  of  Italy,  or  even  to  the  wandering  Greeks  of 
the  previous  century.  The  spirit  of  the  Renaissance  was  at  work 
in  Constantinople  at  a  still  earlier  time.  In  the  ninth  century, 
that  spirit  is  embodied  in  the  brilliant  personality  of  Photius, 
which  illuminates  an  age  of  darkness  and  barbarism.  In  the 


XXIII.] 


BYZANTINE  SCHOLARSHIP. 


425 


tenth,  the  intelligent  knowledge  .of  antiquity  and  the  aspiration 
after  its  continued  preservation  appear  to  decline,  while  the 
despotic  will  of  Constantine  Porphyrogenitus  threatens  to  bury 
the  remains  of  earlier  Greek  literature  under  a  mass  of  encyclo¬ 
paedic  works  projected  on  a  magnificent  scale  but  executed  in 
a  most  mechanical  manner.  But,  in  the  same  age,  we  may 
gratefully  acknowledge  the  efforts  made  by  intelligent  custodians 
and  expositors  of  the  treasures  of  the  past,  such  as  Arethas  the 
bibliophile,  and  Suidas  the  lexicographer.  In  the  eleventh  century 
the  comprehensive  intellect  of  a  Psellus  is  attracted  to  the  study 
of  antiquity  as  a  whole,  in  the  way  that  was  afterwards  character¬ 
istic  of  the  foremost  humanists  of  the  Renaissance ;  while,  under 
the  Comneni  (1057 — 1185)  and  the  Palaeologi  (1261 — 1453),  the 
humanistic  spirit  is  unmistakably  prominent.  It  has  accordingly 
been  well  observed,  that  historians  of  the  Renaissance  must  in 
the  future  go  back  as  far  as  Moschopulus  and  Planudes,  and, 
even  further  still,  to  a  Eustathius  and  a  Psellus,  an  Arethas  and 
a  Photius.  To  obtain  a  continuous  view  of  the  course  of 
grammatical  tradition,  we  must  remember  that  the  works,  which 
enabled  Theodorus  Gaza,  Constantine  Lascaris  and  Manuel 
Chrysoloras  to  promote  the  study  of  the  Greek  language  and 
literature  in  Italy,  were  directly  derived  from  Greek  and  Byzantine 
sources,  from  the  canons  of  Theodosius,  and  the  catechism  of 
Moschopulus,  while  the  ultimate  originals  of  both  of  the  latter 
were  the  works  of  Dionysius  Thrax  in  the  Alexandrian,  and 
Apollonius  and  Herodian  in  the  Roman  age. 

Although  it  was  mainly  by  the  preservation  and  transmission 
of  ancient  literature  that  Byzantine  scholarship  had  an  important 
influence  on  the  learning  of  the  West,  there  was  no  lack  of 
original  and  independent  scholars  who  applied  their  powers  to 
the  emendation  and  interpretation  of  the  old  Greek  Classics, 
and  even  to  the  elaboration  of  new  metrical  systems.  Their 
weakest  side  was  Grammar.  They  laid  little  stress  on  Syntax 
and  not  much  more  on  Accidence,  while  they  paid  special 
attention  to  Accentuation  and  Orthography,  the  latter  subject 
deriving  a  peculiar  importance  from  the  changes  which  had 
affected  the  pronunciation  of  the  Greek  language.  But  the 
scientific  study  of  Grammar  was  set  aside  for  the  preparation  of 


426 


THE  BYZANTINE  AGE. 


[CHAP. 


mere  manuals  for  the  use  of  beginners.  The  innumerable  treatises 
on  Accidence,  Syntax,  Prosody,  and  Metre,  which  abound  in 
most  collections  of  mediaeval  mss,  cannot  be  regarded  as  works 
of  Scholarship  but  merely  as  commonplace  text-books  and  exercise- 
books  for  use  in  the  schools  of  Constantinople.  These  treatises 
seldom  agree  with  one  another,  every  teacher  and  transcriber 
having  in  turn  applied  the  processes  of  combination  or  inter¬ 
polation  to  altering  his  copy  at  his  own  caprice1. 

It  would  be  interesting  to  ascertain  what  portions  of  ancient 
literature  were  in  the  actual  possession  of  the 
Classics  Byzantines,  and  which  were  their  favourite  works. 

Century3??  and  after  ninth  century  they  possessed  little 

more  than  ourselves  of  the  remains  of  classical 
Greek  literature,  such  as  Homer,  Hesiod,  Pindar,  the  Attic 
dramatists,  the  prae-Alexandrian  historians  and  orators,  and  Plato 
and  Aristotle2.  But  they  were  better  provided  with  the  works 
of  the  learned  specialists  and  of  the  later  historians.  The  com¬ 
pilers  of  excerpts  in  the  time  of  Constantine  Porphyrogenitus 
(912-59)  had  before  them  complete  copies  of  many  of  the  latter 
(such  as  Dexippus,  Eunapius,  Priscus,  Malchus,  Petrus  Patricius, 
Menander  Protector  and  John  of  Antioch),  now  surviving  in 
fragments  only.  Considerable  portions  of  Polybius  were  unknown 
to  them,  but  many  fragments  of  that  historian  have  been  preserved 
to  us  through  these  excerpts  alone.  It  was  only  in  an  imperfect 
form  that  Dion  Cassius  was  known  to  Zonaras  and  Xiphilinus. 

The  loss  of  a  large  part  of  Greek  literature  may  be  ascribed 
to  the  general  cessation  of  literary  activity  from  the  middle  of 
the  seventh  (the  age  of  Theophylact  Simocattes)  to  the  middle 
of  the  ninth  century  (the  age  of  Photius).  In  the  tenth,  many 
prose  works  may  have  perished  owing  to  the  compilation  of 
excerpts  under  Constantine  Porphyrogenitus.  There  was  probably 
a  considerable  destruction  of  ancient  literature  in  the  three  fires 
of  Constantinople  which  attended  its  capture  by  the  Franks  in 
1204.  But  its  capture  by  the  Turks  in  1453  probably  did 
comparatively  little  damage  to  the  surviving  remains  of  ancient 
libraries.  By  that  time  Greek  mss  had  already  been  recognised 


1  Abridged  from  Krumbacher,  pp.  499 — 5022. 


2  p.  394  supra. 


XXIII.]  THE  PRESERVATION  OF  THE  GREEK  CLASSICS.  427 


as  a  valuable  commodity.  Possibly  in  the  first  storming  of  the 
city  much  was  destroyed,  but  it  is  expressly  stated  by  a  con¬ 
temporary  writer  that,  on  the  fall  of  Constantinople,  the  Turks 
made  money  of  the  mss  which  they  found,  and  that  they 
despatched  whole  cart-loads  of  books  to  the  East  and  the  West1. 
Another  historian,  who  writes  as  a  friend  of  the  Turks,  notices 
the  destruction  of  books  sacred  and  profane,  stating  that  some 
were  destroyed,  but  ‘the  greater  number’  were  sold  for  a  mere 
trifle2.  There  is  probably  a  good  deal  of  exaggeration  in  the 
statement  made  by  a  Venetian,  Laurus  Quirinus,  who,  writing 
to  Pope  Nicholas  V,  on  15  July,  1453,  says,  on  the  authority  of 
a  cardinal,  that  more  than  120,000  volumes  had  been  destroyed3. 

The  debt  of  modern  Scholarship  to  the  Byzantine  age  can¬ 
not  be  better  summed  up  than  in  the  following  extract  from 
Mr  Frederic  Harrison’s  Rede  Lecture  of  1900: — 

‘  The  peculiar,  indispensable  service  of  Byzantine  literature  was  the 
preservation  of  the  language,  philology,  and  archaeology  of  Greece.  It  is 
impossible  to  see  how  our  knowledge  of  ancient  literature  or  civilisation  could 
have  been  recovered  if  Constantinople  had  not  nursed  through  the  early 
Middle  Ages  the  vast  accumulations  of  Greek  learning  in  the  schools  of 
Alexandria,  Athens,  and  Asia  Minor  ;  if  Photius,  Suidas,  Eustathius,  Tzetzes, 
and  the  Scholiasts  had  not  poured  out  their  lexicons,  anecdotes,  and  com¬ 
mentaries;  if  the  Corpus  Scriptorum  historiae  Byzantinae  had  never  been 
compiled ;  if  indefatigable  copyists  had  not  toiled  in  multiplying  the  texts 
of  ancient  Greece.  Pedantic,  dull,  blundering  as  they  are  too  often,  they  are 
indispensable.  We  pick  precious  truths  and  knowledge  out  of  their  garrulities 
and  stupidities,  for  they  preserve  what  otherwise  would  have  been  lost  for 
ever.  It  is  no  paradox  that  their  very  merit  to  us  is  that  they  were  never 
either  original  or  brilliant.  Their  genius,  indeed,  would  have  been  our  loss. 
Dunces  and  pedants  as  they  were,  they  servilely  repeated  the  words  of  the 
immortals.  Had  they  not  done  so,  the  immortals  would  have  died  long  ago  ’4. 

When  the  Byzantine  age,  in  the  fullest  sense  of  the  term, 
ended  in  1453  with  the  conquest  of  Constantinople  by  the  Turks, 

1  Ducas,  c.  42  (p.  312  ed.  Bonn),  ras  8b  fttfiXovs  cnrdcras,  virbp  apidp.bv 
vt eppaivovaas,  rats  ap.d%cus  (popTrjydxravTes  diravraxov  iv  rrj  avaToXrj  Kai  Svocl 
Sdo-rreipav’  81  evos  vop.l<Tp.aros  5£kcl  (3L(3Xol  emirpavKOVTO,  ’ApicrToreXLKoL,  HXaru- 
vl KOI,  deoXoyiKoi  Kai  dXXo  irav  elbos  f$Lfi Xov.  Krumbacher,  §  2152,  pp.  503-6. 

2  Critobulus,  c.  62,  3  (Bury’s  Gibbon,  vii  194  n). 

3  Letter  in  Cotton  MSS  quoted  in  Hodius,  De  Graecis  Illustribus ,  1742, 

% 

p.  192. 

4  Byzantine  History  in  the  Early  Middle  Ages ,  p.  36. 


428 


THE  BYZANTINE  AGE. 


[CHAP,  XXIII. 


the  attention  of  the  youthful  conqueror,  Mohammed  II,  was 
arrested,  as  he  rode  through  the  hippodrome,  by  the  brazen 
column  composed  of  three  serpents  intertwined,  which  is  still 
to  be  seen  on  the  Atmeidan.  More  than  nineteen  centuries 
had  passed  since  the  heads  of  those  serpents  had  first  supported 
the  historic  tripod  which  the  Greeks  had  dedicated  at  Delphi 
in  memory  of  their  victory  over  the  barbarians  at  Plataea.  A 
blow  from  the  conqueror’s  mace  shattered  part  of  one  of  the 
serpents’  heads,  and  that  shattered  head  was  an  expressive 
emblem  of  the  fact  that  the  power  of  the  Greeks  to  resist  the 
barbarians  was  now  at  an  end.  But  we  may  gratefully  remember 
that  the  capital  of  the  Eastern  Empire  had,  with  all  its  elements 
of  weakness,  proved  strong  enough  to  stand  for  centuries  as  the 
bulwark  of  Europe  against  the  barbarians  of  the  East,  thus 
sheltering  the  nascent  nations  of  the  West,  while  they  slowly 
attained  the  fulness  of  their  maturity,  and,  at  the  same  time, 
keeping  the  treasures  of  the  old  Greek  literature  in  a  place  of 
safety,  until  those  nations  were  sufficiently  civilised  to  receive 
them.  From  our  survey  of  the  history  of  Scholarship  in  the 
Byzantine  age,  we  now  turn  to  the  story  of  its  fortunes  during 
the  corresponding  period  of  the  Middle  Ages  in  the  West  of 
Europe. 


7/a T '  i mji 4v.  -r 

m 


End  of  Scholia  on  Hesiod’s  Works  and  Days  by  Manuel  Moschopulus, 
copied  by  Demetrius  Triclinius  1316  a.d. 

Codex  S.  Marci  Venetus  464,  fol.  78;  Wattenbach  et  von  Velsen,  Exempla 
Codicum  Graecorum ,  xxi  (pp.  419  f  supra). 


BOOK  VI. 


THE  MIDDLE  AGES  IN  THE  WEST. 


semper  aut  discere  aut  docere  aut  scribere  dulce  habui. 

Bede,  Historia  Ecclesiastica,  v  24, 


mihi  satis  apparet propter  se  ipsam  appeienda  sapientia. 

Servatus  Lupus,  Ep .  1. 


in  otio ,  in  negotio ,  et  docemus  quod  scimus  et  addiscimus  quod 
nescimus. 


Gerbert,  Ep.  44. 


claustrum  sine  armario  <est>  quasi  castrum  sine  armamentario. 

Geoffrey  of  Sainte-Barbe-en-Auge  to  Peter  Mangot(c  1170), 
in  Martene,  Thesaurus  novus  Anecdotorum ,  i  511. 


notitia  linguarum  est  prima  porta  sapientiae. 

Roger  Bacon,  Opus  Tertium ,  c.  28,  p.  102  Brewer. 


On  peut  dire  que  la  philosophie  scholastique  est  nee  a  Paris  et 
qiielle  y  est  morte.  Une  phrase  de  Porphyre ,  un  rayon  derobe  a 
Vantiquite ,  la  produisit;  Vantiquite  tout  e?itiere  letouffa. 

Victor  Cousin,  Ouvrages  Inedits  I  Abelard ,  p.  lx  (1836). 


Conspectus  of  History  of  Scholarship,  &c., 
in  the  West,  600 — 1000  A.D. 


Italy 


600 - 

604  d.  Gregory  I 

612  f.  Bobbio 
615  d.  Columban 

Greek  monasteries 
founded  in  Rome 
by  Martin  I  (649- 
55) 


690  Greek  declines 
in  Italy 


Spain 


700 - 

715-31  Gregory  II 
726  f.  Novalesa 

730- 80  Greek  refu¬ 
gees  in  Italy 

731- 41  Gregory  III 


770  Petrus  Pisanus 
774  end  of  Lombard 
kingdom 
725-97  Paulus 

Diaconus 
795-817  Leo  III 


800 - 

Charles  the  Great 
crowned  at  Rome 

817- 24  Pascal  I 

818- 50  Greek  refu¬ 
gees  in  Italy 

823  Dungal  at  Pavia 


846  d.  Pacificus  of 
Verona 

858-67  Nicholas  I 


900 


916-24  Gesta  Beren- 
garii 

924  d.  Berengar 


961-2  Otho  I  crowned 
at  Rome  king  of 
Italy  and  emperor 

967  d.  Gunzo  of  No¬ 
vara 

972  d.  Luitprand  bp 
of  Cremona 

974  d.  Ratherius  bp 
of  Verona 

999-1003  Silvester  II 
{Gerbert) 

1000  Ml— 


570-636  Isi¬ 
dore  of 
Seville 


657  Euge- 
niusIII  bp 
of  Toledo 


690  d.  Julian 
bp  of  To¬ 
ledo 


‘  France  ’ 

W.  Frankland 


‘  Germany  ’ 

E.  Frankland 


714  Arab 
Conquest 
of  Spain 


535-600  Venantius 

Fortunatus 
‘Virgilius  Maro’ 

613  Frank  kingdoms  u- 
nited  under  Clothar  II 
620  f.  Fleur y 
625  f.  St  Riquier 
630  f.  Ferrieres 
634  f.  Rebais 
650  f.  Peronne 
656  f.  Stavelot 
658  Fredegarius 
662  f.  Corbie 
688  d.  St  Wandrille 


614  f.  St  Gallen 


645  d.  Gallus 


721  f.  Priim 
725  d.  St  Giles 
732  Saracens  defeated 
by  Charles  Martel 


724  f.  Reichenau 


752  end  of  Merovingian 
&  beginning  of  Caro- 
lingian  line 

742-66  Chrodegang  abp  744  f.  Fulda 
of  Metz  754  d.  Boniface 

763  f.  Lorsch 

772-814  Sole  rule  of  743-84  Virgil  bp  of 
Charles  the  Great  Salzburg 

796-804  Alcuin  at  Tours 


810  Dungal  at  St  Denis 
814-40  Louis  the  Pious 
821  d.  Theodulfus  bp 
and  founder  of  school 
of  Orleans 

826  Ermoldus  Nigellus 
837  Thegan 

840-77  Charles  the  Bald 
805-62  Servatus  Lupus 
845  Joannes  Scotus 
(d.  875) 

850  d.  Freculphus 
840-60  Sedulius  at  Liege 
865  d.  Radbertus 
877  d.  Eric  of  Auxerre 
881-8  Charles  the  Fat 


908  d.  Remi  of  Auxerre 

910  f.  Cluni 
915  d.  Regino 


923  d.  Abbo  Cernuus 
930  d.  Hucbald 


942  d.  Odo  of  Cluni 
950  b.  Gerbert  of 
Aurillac 


987  end  of  W.  Carolin- 
gians  &  beginning  of 
line  of  Hugh  Capet 
991-6  Gerbert  abp  of 
Rheims 


822  f.  Corvey 
770-840  Einhard 
843  Treaty  of  Verdun 
776-856  Rabanus 
Maurus 

809-49  Walafrid 
Strabo 

830  f.  Hirschau 
850  Ermenrich  of 
Ellwangen 
852  Rudolf.  Ann. 
Fuld. 

874  Agius,  Poeta 
Saxo 

890  Salomo  III, 
abbot  of  St  Gallen 


91 1  end  of  E.  Caro- 
lingians 

912  d.  Notker  Bal- 
bulus 

918-36  Henry  of 
Saxony 

925  Lotharingia  re¬ 
covered  for  Ger¬ 
many 

936  Ecbasis  Captivi 

936-73  Otho  I 

965  d.  Bruno  abp  of 
Cologne 

973  d.  Ekkehard  I 

973-83  Otho  II 

983  Walther  of 
Speier 

984  Hroswitha  of 
Gandersheim 

996-1002  Otho  III 


Continued from  p.  204. 


b.  bom  ;  d.  died ;  f.  founded. 


British  Isles 


602-5  Augustine  abp 
of  Canterbury 

?  Hisperica famina 

651^90  Aidan  bp  of 
Lindisfarne 
668-90  Theodore  of 
Tarsus  abp  of  Can¬ 
terbury 
673  b.  Bede 
675  b.  Boniface 
688-726  Ina,  king  of 
Wessex 

690  d.  Benedict 
Biscop 


650-709  Aldhelm 
732  Egbert  abp  of 
York 

734  d.  Tatwine  abp 
of  Canterbury 

735  d.  Bede, 
b.  Alcuin 


778-81  Alcuin  head 
of  the  school  of 
York 


810-5  b.  Joannes 
Scotus 


871 — c.  900  Alfred 


942-58  Odo  abp  of 
Canterbury 
959-88  Dunstan  abp 
of  Canterbury 
c.  955 — 1030  iElfric 
of  Eynsham 
969  f.  Ramsey 
985-7  Abbo  of  Fleury 
at  Ramsey 


CHAPTER  XXIV. 


FROM  GREGORY  THE  GREAT  (c.  54O— 604) 

TO  BONIFACE  (675 — 754). 

The  Roman  age  has  already  been  described  as  coming  to  an 
end  in  the  memorable  year  529,  when  the  Monastery  of  Monte 
Cassino  was  founded  in  the  West  and  the  School  of  Athens 
closed  in  the  East.  The  history  of  Scholarship  during  the 
Middle  Ages  in  the  West,  to  which  we  now  turn  our  attention, 
covers  a  period  of  rather  more  than  eight  centuries,  extending 
from  about  530  to  about  1350  a.d.  Shortly  after  the  beginning 
of  this  period,  we  have  the  birth  of  the  biographer  of  Benedict, 
Gregory  the  Great  (540),  the  father  of  mediaeval  Christianity; 
and,  shortly  before  its  end,  the  death  of  Dante  (1321),  who 
embodies  in  his  immortal  poem  much  of  the  scholastic  teaching 
of  the  age.  In  our  survey  of  this  period,  we  propose  to  pass  in 
review  the  names  of  special  interest  in  the  world  of  letters,  so  far 
as  they  have  definite  points  of  contact  with  the  history  of  classical 
learning.  The  present  chapter  begins  with  the  biographer  of 
Benedict,  and  ends  with  Boniface. 

Gregory  the  Great  (c.  540 — 604),  who  became  Pope  in  589, 
belonged  to  a  senatorial  family  and  received  a 
liberal  education  which  made  him  second  to  none 
in  Rome1.  He  had  already  filled  the  high  office  of  Praetor,  when 
he  withdrew  from  a  secular  life  and  devoted  his  ancestral  wealth 
to  the  founding  of  six  monasteries  in  Sicily,  and  a  seventh  in 
Rome,  which  he  selected  for  his  own  retreat.  As  papal  envoy 
in  Constantinople  (584-7),  notwithstanding  his  ignorance  of 
Greek,  he  entered  into  a  controversy  with  the  Patriarch  himself. 


1  Greg.  Tur.  Hist.  Franc,  x  1 ;  Paulus  Diaconus,  Vita  Greg.  c.  2. 


432 


THE  SIXTH  CENTURY  IN  THE  WEST.  [CHAP. 


In  one  of  his  Letters'  he  complains  that  there  were  none  in 
Constantinople  who  were  capable  of  making  a  good  translation 
from  Latin  into  Greek,  an  expression  implying,  on  his  own  part, 
some  slight  acquaintance  with  the  latter  language,  although,  in 
another  letter,  he  disclaims  all  such  knowledge,  adding  that  he 
had  never  written  any  work  in  that  language1 2 3.  In  his  Magna 
Moralia  he  sets  forth  an  allegorical  interpretation  of  the  Book  of 
Job,  which  he  was  not  capable  of  studying  either  in  Hebrew  or  in 
Greek,  but  only  in  the  earlier  and  the  later  Latin  versions.  It 
was  his  own  influence  that  led  to  the  general  recognition  and 
acceptance  of  the  Latin  Vulgate.  Towards  the  close  of  the  long 
letter  prefixed  to  the  Moralia ,  he  confesses  his  contempt  for  the 
art  of  speech,  and  admits  that  he  is  not  over-careful  in  the 
avoidance  of  barbarisms  or  inaccurate  uses  of  prepositions, 
deeming  it  ‘  utterly  unworthy  to  keep  the  language  of  the  Divine 
Oracles  in  subjection  to  the  rules  of  Donatus53;  and  this  principle 
he  applies  to  his  own  commentary,  as  well  as  to  the  sacred  text. 
His  attitude  towards  the  secular  study  of  Latin  literature  is  well 
illustrated  in  the  letter  to  Desiderius,  bishop  of  Vienne.  He  is 
almost  ashamed  to  mention  the  rumour  that  has  reached  him,  to 
the  effect  that  the  bishop  was  in  the  habit  of  instructing  certain 
persons  in  grammatical  learning.  ‘  The  praises  of  Christ  cannot 
be  pronounced  by  the  same  lips  as  the  praises  of  Jove’4.  He 
hopes  to  hear  that  the  bishop  is  not  really  interested  in  such 
trifling  subjects5.  Elsewhere,  however,  the  study  of  Grammar 
and  the  knowledge  of  the  liberal  arts  are  emphatically  commended 
on  the  ground  of  the  aid  they  afford  in  the  understanding  of  the 
Scriptures ;  but  the  genuineness  of  the  work,  in  which  this 
opinion  is  expressed6,  is  doubtful.  Later  writers  record  the 
tradition  that  Gregory  did  his  best  to  suppress  the  works  of 

1  Epp.  vii  30. 

2  Ep.  xi  74,  nos  nec  Graece  novimus,  nec  aliquod  opus  aliquando  Graece 
conscripsimus  (cp.  vii  32,  quamvis  Graecae  linguae  nescius). 

3  Migne,  Ixxv  516  B. 

4  ‘  In  uno  se  ore  cum  Iovis  laudibus  Christi  laudes  non  capiunt  ’ ;  a 
reminiscence  of  Jerome’s  Ep.  ad  Damasum,  21  §  13,  ‘  absit  ut  de  ore  Christiano 
sonet  Iupiter  omnipotens’,  xxii  386  Migne  (R.  L.  Poole’s  Medieval  Thought ,  8). 

5  nugis  et  secularibus  litteris ;  Ep.  xi  54. 

6  Book  v  of  Comm,  on  I  Kings  3,  30,  Migne  Ixxix  356. 


XXIV.] 


GREGORY  I.  IORDANES.  GILDAS. 


433 


Iordanes 


Cicero,  the  charm  of  whose  style  diverted  young  men  from  the 
study  of  the  Scriptures1,  and  that  he  burnt  all  the  books  of  Livy 
which  he  could  find,  because  they  were  full  of  idolatrous 
superstitions2.  It  was  even  stated  that  he  set  the  Palatine 
Library  on  fire,  lest  it  should  interfere  with  the  study  of  the 
Bible,  but  the  sole  authority  for  this  is  John  of  Salisbury3 
(d.  1180),  and  the  statement  is  unworthy  of  credit4. 

In  the  same  century  we  have  an  interesting  group  of  three 
historians,  all  of  whom  exemplify  the  prevailing 
decline  in  grammatical  knowledge.  The  first  of 
these  is  Iordanes,  the  author  of  a  universal  chronicle,  who,  in  his 
abridgement  (551)  of  the  History  of  the  Goths  by  Cassiodorus, 
borrows  his  preface  from  Rufinus  and  his  opening  words  from 
Orosius,  and  confesses  his  debt  to  others  in  delightfully  ungram¬ 
matical  Latin5.  The  justice  with  which  he  describes  himself  as 
agrammatus 6  is  apparent  on  every  page  of  his  work.  He  makes 
dolus  and  fluvius  neuter,  and  flumen ,  gaudium  and  regnum 
masculine;  and  abounds  in  errors  of  declension  and  conjugation; 
but  even  his  blunders  in  grammar,  gross  as  they  are,  cannot 
conceal  the  debt  which  he  obviously  owes  to  the  rhetorical 
phraseology  of  Cassiodorus,  to  whom  he  is  also  indebted  for  all 
his  learned  quotations7. 

The  interval  between  the  consulship  and  the  death  of 
Cassiodorus  corresponds  to  the  life  of  Gildas  of 
Bath  (516 — 573),  the  first  native  historian  of  Britain. 

The  learning  he  had  derived  from  St  Iltul,  the  ‘teacher  of  the 
Britons  ’,  was  enlarged  by  a  visit  to  Ireland ;  and  he  even  founded 
a  monastery  in  Brittany.  Much  of  the  earlier  part  of  his  ‘  lament 


Gildas 


1  In  Edict  of  Louis  XI  (1473);  P.  Lyron,  Singidaritates  Historicae ,  i  167 
(Tiraboschi,  Letteraticra  Italiana ,  ii  2,  10,  vol.  iii,  p.  118  ed.  1787). 

2  S.  Antoninus,  Summa  Theol.  iv  11,  4  ( ibid.). 

3  Policraticus,  ii  26,  viii  19. 

4  On  Gregory,  cp.  Tiraboschi,  Lett.  Ital.  iii  109 — 123  (ed.  1787);  Bayle’s 
Diet.,  s.  v. ;  Heeren,  Cl.  Litt.  im  Mittelalter ,  i  78 — 81;  Milman,  Lat.  Christ. 
ii  97 — 145;  Ebert,  Lit.  des  Mittelalters ,  i2  542-6;  and  Teuffel,  §493;  Epp.  ed. 
Ewald  and  Hartmann  in  Mon.  Germ.  Hist.  1887-99. 

5  Scito  me  maiorum  secutum  scriptis  ex  eorum  latissima  prata  paucos  flores 
legisse. 

6  Get.  265.  7  Teuffel,  §  485. 

S.  28 


434 


THE  SIXTH  CENTURY  IN  THE  WEST.  [CHAP. 


Gregory  of 
Tours 


on  the  ruin  of  Britain’  is  derived  from  St  Jerome’s  Letters  and 
from  a  Latin  version  of  the  Ecclesiastical  History  of  Eusebius. 
The  work  as  a  whole  is  written  in  a  verbose,  florid,  fantastic  and 
exaggerated  form  of  monastic  Latin,  and  its  prolix  periods  often 
tend  to  obscurity1. 

It  was  in  the  year  of  the  death  of  Gildas  (573)  that  Gregory, 
the  historian  of  the  Franks  ( c .  538 — 594),  became 
bishop  of  Tours.  In  the  preface  to  his  History  he 
refers  to  the  decay  of  literature  in  Gaul2.  His 
works  in  general  show  a  certain  familiarity  with  Virgil,  especially 
with  the  first  book  of  the  Aeneid ,  but  he  cannot  quote  three  lines 
of  verse  without  making  havoc  of  the  metre3.  Yet  he  ventures  to 
criticise  the  versification  of  king  Chilperic4,  who,  besides  writing 
Latin  poetry,  had  (like  Claudius)  attempted  to  add  several  new 
letters  to  the  Latin  alphabet.  He  is  familiar  with  the  preface  to 
the  Catiline  of  Sallust ;  but  his  quotations  from  Cicero  are 
borrowed  from  Jerome,  and  those  from  Pliny  and  Gellius  are 
probably  second-hand.  He  repeatedly  apologises  for  his  imperfect 
knowledge  of  grammar5.  He  combines  the  plurals  haec  and  quae 
with  a  singular  verb ;  he  writes  antedictus  cives  for  antedictos,  and 
percolibantur  (i.e.  perculebantur)  for  percellebantur ;  and  one  of  his 
favourite  constructions  is  the  accusative  absolute.  The  study  of 
his  works  shows  that,  in  his  day,  the  pronunciation  of  Latin 


1  Cp.  Ebert,  i2  562-5;  Teuffel,  §  486,  1. 

2  Decedente  atque  immo  potius  pereunte  ab  urbibus  Gallicanis  liberalium 
cultura  litterarum...Vae  diebus  nostris,  quia  periit  studium  litterarum  a  nobis. 

3  H.  F.  iv  30  and  Mart,  i  40. 

4  H.  F.  v  44,  ‘  scripsit  alios  libros  idem  rex  versibus,  quasi  Sedulium 
secutus;  sed  versiculi  illi  nulla  paenitus  metricae  conveniunt  ratione’.  Never¬ 
theless,  posterity  placed  the  statue  of  Chilperic  over  the  S.W.  door  of  Notre- 
Dame,  with  a  lyre  in  his  hand  in  the  attitude  of  Apollo  (Montfaucon,  Mon.  de  la 
Monarchic ,  t.  i).  Male,  however,  V Art  Religieux,  438,  identifies  this  as  David. 

5  H.  F.  iv  1,  veniam  precor,  si  aut  in  litteris  aut  in  syllabis  grammatifcam 
artem  excessero,  de  qua  adplene  non  sum  imbutus.  Vit.  Pair.  2,  praef.,  non 
me  artis  grammaticae  studium  imbuit  neque  auctorum  saecularium  polita  lectio 
erudivit.  Liber  in  gloria  confessorum ,  praef.,  timeo,  ne,  cum  scribere  coepero, 
quia  sum  sine  litteris  rethoricis  et  arte  grammatica,  dicatur  mihi  a  litteratis  : 
‘O  rustice  et  idiota...qui  nomina  discernere  nescis;  saepius  pro  masculinis 
feminea...commutas;  qui  ipsas  quoque  praepositiones...loco  debito  plerumque 
non  locas’...sed  tamen  respondebo  illis  et  dicam,  quia:  ‘opusvestrum  facio  et 
per  meam  rusticitatem  vestram  prudentiam  exercebo’. 


XXIV.]  GREGORY  OF  TOURS.  MARTIN  OF  BRACARA.  435 


Fredegarius 


differed  from  the  spelling;  e  was  confounded  with  i,  and  0 
with  u ;  many  of  the  consonants  were  pronounced  feebly  or 
suppressed  altogether;  aspiration  was  little  observed,  and  a 
sibilant  sound  was  introduced  into  ci  and  ii.  Meanwhile,  the 
vocabulary  was  being  enlarged  by  the  addition  of  words  borrowed 
from  Greek  and  Hebrew  and  even  from  barbarous  languages,  and 
by  the  use  of  old  words  in  new  senses.  The  departure  from 
classical  usage  is  most  striking  in  matters  of  syntax,  while  there  is 
comparatively  little  change  in  the  inflexions.  Gregory  of  Tours 
is  primarily  an  authority  for  the  history  of  the  Franks  during  the 
century  preceding  his  own  death ;  but  he  also  supplies  important 
evidence  on  the  characteristics  of  the  Latin  language  in  the  days 
of  its  decline1.  The  decay  of  letters  is  lamented  in  the  next 
century  by  Fredegarius  Scholasticus  ( f .  658),  who, 
in  a  Chronicle  written  in  a  Burgundian  monastery, 
complains  that  the  world  is  on  the  wane,  intellectual  activity  is 
dead,  and  the  ancient  writers  have  no  successors2. 

Among  the  older  contemporaries  of  Gregory,  bishop  of  Tours, 
was  Martin,  archbishop  of  Bracara,  whom  he 
describes  in  general  as  second  to  none  of  his  own  Br“aar^n  °f5go 
age  in  the  world  of  letters,  and  in  particular  as  the 
author  of  the  Latin  verses  over  the  S.  door  of  the  church  of 
St  Martin  at  Tours.  In  his  ethical  works,  and  especially  in  his 
treatise  de  ira  and  the  formula  honestae  vitae 3,  he  makes  much 
use  of  Seneca,  and  these  works  were  long  ascribed  to  Seneca 
himself4. 

The  decline  in  Scholarship  which  has  been  traced  in  the 
historians  is  also  to  be  noticed  in  the  poets  of  this  poets 
age.  The  poets  of  the  middle  of  the  sixth  century  Maximianus, 
include  the  Tuscan  Maximianus,  who  spent  his  corippus, 
youth  in  Rome,  and  wrote  in  his  later  years  the  Fortunatus 
six  elegies  which  had  a  singular  fascination  for  students  in  the 


1  Max  Bonnet,  Le  Latin  de  Gregoire  de  Tours  (1890).  Cp.  Ebert,  i2  566- 
79,  and  Teuffel,  §  486,  3 — 9. 

2  Bouquet,  ii  413  (Haase,  De  Medii  Aevi  Stud.  Philol.  28);  cp.  Putnam, 
Books  in  the  Middle  Ages,  i  128. 

3  Included  in  Supplement  to  Haase’s  ed.  of  Seneca. 

4  Teuffel,  §  494,  2 ;  Schanz,  §  470. 


28 — 2 


436 


POETS  OF  THE  SIXTH  CENTURY.  [CHAP. 


Middle  Ages1.  He  is  a  Christian  who  poses  as  a  pagan.  Familiar 
with  Virgil,  Catullus,  and  the  elegiac  and  lyric  poets  of  the 
Augustan  age,  he  is  not  always  correct  in  points  of  prosody, 
his  metrical  mistakes  including  verecundia  and  pedagogus2.  Irre¬ 
gularities  of  prosody  are  also  frequent  in  the  metrical  version  of 
the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  produced  by  Arator,  who  studied  at 
Milan  and  Ravenna.  In  the  same  age  the  African  Corippus 
(55°)  writes  epic  poems  on  historical  subjects  in  a  fluent  style 
inspired  by  Virgil  and  Claudian,  while  he  also  imitates  Ovid, 
Lucan  and  Statius,  being,  in  point  of  prosody,  the  most  correct 
of  all  the  poets  of  his  time.  His  contemporary,  Venantius 
Fortunatus  (c.  535 — c.  600),  was  educated  at  Ravenna,  left  Italy 
for  Gaul,  where  he  found  a  friend  in  Gregory  of  Tours,  and, 
towards  the  end  of  his  life,  became  bishop  of  Poitiers.  He  is  a 
devoted  adherent  of  Radegunde  (the  widow  of  king  Clothar  I) 
and  her  foster-daughter.  He  tells  us  that  Radegunde  was  a 
profound  student  of  St  Gregory,  St  Basil  and  St  Athanasius,  and 
that  Gertrude,  abbess  of  Nivelle,  had  sent  messengers  to  Rome  and 
to  Ireland  for  the  purchase  of  books3.  He  also  mentions  the 
custom  of  giving  recitations  from  Virgil  and  other  poets  in  the 
Forum  of  Trajan4.  His  elegiacs  and  hexameters  include  many 
reminiscences  of  Virgil  and  Ovid,  Claudian  and  Sedulius,  Prosper 
and  Arator,  while  he  is  himself  imitated  by  later  versifiers  such  as 
Alcuin  and  Theodulfus,  Rabanus  Maurus  and  Walafrid  Strabo5. 
He  describes  a  castle  on  the  Mosel,  and  a  voyage  from  Metz  to 
Andernach6,  without  attaining  the  charm  of  the  Mosella  of 
Ausonius.  He  addresses  the  bishop  of  Tours  in  a  generally 
correct  set  of  Sapphics  after  the  Horatian  model,  unhappily 
ending  with  care  Gregori.  In  the  same  poem  he  mentions 
Pindar  (Pindarus  Graius),  and,  in  the  prose  preface  to  his  Life 
of  St  Martin ,  he  even  quotes  four  rhetorical  terms  in  the  original 
Greek7.  He  flatters  the  poets  and  orators  of  his  day  with  the 

1  Reichling  in  Mon.  Germ.  Paed.  XI I  pp.  xx,  xxxvii  f. 

2  Manitius  in  Rhein.  Mus.  xliv  540;  R.  Ellis  in  A.  f.  P.  v  1 — 15  and 
Cl.  Rev.  xv  368;  ed.  Petschenig  (1890),  Webster  (1900). 

3  viii  1.  4  iii  20;  vi  8. 

5  Manitius,  Index  iii  and  iv  to  ed.  by  Leo  and  Krusch  in  Mon.  Hist.  Germ. 
{1881-5). 

6  iii  12;  x  9.  7  e\\el\f/eis,  dLoupeveis,  TrapevOtaeis. 


XXIV.] 


‘VIRGIL’  THE  GRAMMARIAN. 


437 


assurance  that  they  found  their  inspiration  in  Homer  and 
Demosthenes1;  but  his  own  study  of  his  classical  predecessors 
does  not  prevent  his  perpetrating  such  mistakes  as  adhuc ,  initium , 
idolum,  ecclesia  and  trinitas ;  and  he  succeeds  in  making  four 
false  quantities  in  the  six  Greek  names  included  in  the  single 
line,  Archyta ,  Pythagoras ,  Aratus,  Cato ,  Plato ,  Chrysippus 2. 
Three,  however,  of  his  sacred  poems  are  widely  known.  Ambrose 
is  his  model  in  Vexilla  regis  prodeunt ,  while  the  triumphant 
trochaic  tetrameter  of  the  Roman  soldiers,  and  of  Prudentius,  is 
the  type  followed  by  Pange  lingua  gloriosi  proelium  certaminis. 
The  ordinary  elegiac  couplet  is  used  in  the  description  of  Spring 
( Salve  festa  dies )  written  for  Felix,  bishop  of  Nantes,  whom  he 
belauds  as  a  perfect  Greek  scholar  and  as  ‘  the  light  of  Armorica’. 
It  is  only  in  these  three  poems,  and  in  the  modern  hymns 
translated  from  them3,  that  Fortunatus  may  be  said  to  have 
survived  to  the  present  day4. 

The  decadence  of  Latin  in  the  seventh  century  (one  of  the 
darkest  ages  in  Latin  literature)  is  exemplified  in 
the  person  of  the  grammarian  Virgilius  Maro,  who  grammarian*6 
may  be  placed  early  in  that  century,  or  late  in  the 
sixth5.  He  assures  us  that  his  master  Aeneas  gave  him  the  name 
of  Maro,  ‘quia  in  eo  antiqui  Maronis  spiritus  redivivit’.  He 
describes  certain  grammarians  as  wrangling  for  a  fortnight  over 
the  vocative  of  ego,  and  as  drawing  their  swords  after  an  equally 
long  discussion  on  inchoative  verbs.  His  only  value  lies  in  the 
way  in  which  he  illustrates  the  transition  from  Latin  to  its 
Provencal  descendant,  and  from  quantitative  to  rhythmical  forms 
of  verse.  He  is  described  as  belonging  to  the  school  of  Toulouse6. 
He  records  the  custom  of  having  two  separate  Libraries  (i)  of 


1  viii  l. 

2  vii  12,  25;  cp.  index  rei  metricae  in  Leo’s  ed. 

3  Moorsom’s  Companion  to  Hymns  A.  and  M.,  pp.  58 — 662. 

4  Cp.  Ampere,  Hist.  Litt.  ii  312  f;  Ozanam,  La  Civilisation  Chretienne 
chez  les  Francs ,  pp.  412-9  (ed.  1855);  Ebert,  i2  533;  Teuffel,  §  491  f;  and 
Saintsbury,  i  396-9. 

5  Ozanam,  438  f.  His  only  extant  work^  are  the  Epitomae  ad  Fabianum 
puerum ,  and  the  Epistolae  ad  Julium  germanum  diaconum  (Mai,  Cl.  Auct. 
v  1);  cp.  Hiimer  (Wien,  1882). 

6  Abbo  of  Fleury  (d.  1004),  Quaest.  Gr.  ed.  Mai,  Cl.  Auct.  v  349. 


438 


GREEK  IN  IRELAND. 


[CHAP. 


Christian,  (2)  of  pagan  literature1 2.  He  also  tells  us  that  his 
preceptor  ‘  Virgilius  Assianus  ’  wrote  a  work  on  the  twelve  kinds 
of  Latin.  With  the  help  of  Greek,  he  coins  new  words:  scribere 
becomes  charaxare ,  rex  appears  as  thors  (from  Opovos),  and  a 
cryptic  form  of  Latin  comes  into  use,  which  has  points  of 
similarity  with  the  Irish  monk’s  Hisperica  fatnina  (cent,  vii), 
where,  amid  much  that  is  singularly  obscure,  it  is  a  relief  to  find 
so  clear  a  phrase  as  : — ‘ pantes  solitum  elaborant  agrestres  orgium  V 
It  is  characteristic  of  the  Irish  origin  of  this  strange  composition 
that  we  here  find  two  words  borrowed  from  Greek. 

While  the  accurate  knowledge  of  Latin  was  declining  in  Gaul, 
even  Greek  was  not  unknown  in  Ireland3.  That 
Ireland  m  island  had  reaped  the  benefit  of  its  remoteness 
from  those  incursions,  which,  in  the  fifth  century, 
had  wrought  havoc  on  the  civilisation  of  almost  all  the  lands  of 
the  West.  It  was  in  the  same  century  ( c .  405)  that  St  Patrick, 
who  had  been  educated  under  St  Martin  of  Tours,  crossed  the 
seas  to  convert  the  Irish  to  the  Christian  faith.  In  445  he 
established  an  archiepiscopal  see  at  Armagh4;  and,  four  years 
later,  the  first  invasion  of  Britain  by  the  English  drove 
Christianity  into  the  mountains  of  Wales  and  the  borders  of 
Scotland,  and  even  to  the  many  monasteries  which  had  recently 
been  founded  in  Ireland5.  The  knowledge  of  Greek,  which  had 
almost  vanished  in  the  West,  was  so  widely  diffused  in  the  schools 
of  Ireland,  that,  if  anyone  knew  Greek,  it  was  assumed  that  he 


1  Ep.  p.  41. 

2  Mai,  l.c.,  v  479  f;  Ozanam,  La  Civilisation  Chretienne  chez  les  Francs 
(1855),  423-51,  483  f,  and  Etudes  Germ,  ii  479! ;  Teuffel,  §  497,  7;  Hisperica 
Famina ,  ed.  Stowasser  (1887);  ed.  Jenkinson  (announced) ;  R.  Ellis  in  Journ. 
Philol.  xxviii  (1903)  209!;  Zimmer,  Nennius  vindicalus  (1893),  291  f,  assigns 
it  to  S.W.  Britain  (first  half  of  cent.  VI). 

3  Cp.  Cramer,  De  Graecis  Medii  Aevi  Studiis  (1849),  i  42;  Ozanam,  l.c. 
475-82;  Haureau,  Singularity  Historiques  et  Litteraires  (1861),  pp.  1 — 36; 
G.  T.  Stokes,  Ireland  and  the  Celtic  Church  (1886),  Lect.  xi;  and  H.  Zimmer, 
Keltische  Kirche  in  Britannien  u.  Irland,  in  Realencyclopadie  f.  prot.  Theol. 
(1901),  abstract  in  Eng.  Hist.  Rev.  1901,  p.  757  f. 

4  Zimmer  places  the  death  of  St  Patrick  in  459  ;  Stokes  in  463. 

5  Cp.  T.  Moore’s  History  of  Ireland,  vol.  i  c.  10;  and  Eichhorn,  Allg. 
Gesch.  (1799)  h  l7 6 — 188. 


XXIV.] 


COLUMBAN  IN  THE  VOSGES. 


439 


must  have  come  from  that  country.  The  Irish  passion  for  travel1 
led  to  the  light  of  learning  which  had  lingered  in  the  remotest 
island  of  the  West  being  transmitted  anew  to  the  lands  of  the 
South2. 

The  Irish  monk,  Columban,  born  in  Leinster  about  543,  had 
received  an  excellent  education  on  one  of  the  many 
islands  of  Lough  Erne  before  he  entered  the  monas¬ 
tery  of  Bangor  on  the  Eastern  coast  of  Ulster.  The  monastery 
was  then  at  the  height  of  its  fame,  and  it  was  doubtless  owing  to 
the  classical  training  he  had  there  received,  that  he  was  able  at 
the  age  of  68  to  address  a  friend  in  a  lengthy  poem  of  Adonic 
verse,  from  which  the  few  following  lines  are  taken : — 


‘  Inclyta  vates, 
Nomine  Sappho, 
Versibus  istis 
Dulce  solebat 
Edere  carmen. 


Doctiloquorum 
Carmina  linquens, 

Frivola  nostra 
Suscipe  laetus  ’. 

Migne,  lxxx  291. 


Elsewhere  he  quotes  Juvenal,  and  recommends  the  reading  of  the 
ancient  poets  as  well  as  the  ancient  fathers3.  About  585,  he  was 
suddenly  smitten  with  a  longing  for  foreign  travel.  Attended  by 
twelve  companions,  he  left  for  Gaul ;  and,  having  been  invited  to 
settle  in  Burgundy,  he  founded  in  the  woodland  solitudes  of  the 
Vosges  the  three  monasteries  of  Anegray,  Luxeuil  (c.  590)  and 
Fontaines4.  It  was  about  this  time  that  he  composed  his  Rule, 
which  has  much  in  common  with  that  of  Benedict,  and  prescribes 
the  copying  of  mss,  besides  teaching  in  schools  and  constant  toil 
in  field  and  forest6.  He  was  banished  from  Burgundy  about  610, 
and,  after  withdrawing  to  Nantes,  returned  towards  the  Rhine, 
passing  from  Zurich  to  Zug  and  ultimately  to  the  Lake  of 


1  Vita  S.  Galli ,  ii  47  (Pertz,  Mon.  ii  30),  Scotorum,  quibus  consuetudo 
peregrinandi  iam  paene  in  naturam  conversa  est. 

2  On  ‘Scots  on  the  Continent’,  see  A.  W.  Haddan’s  Remains  (1876), 
258 — 294  ;  cp.  H.  Zimmer’s  Irish  Element  in  Mediaeval  Culture  (E.  T.) ;  and 
Greith,  Gesch.  d.  altirischen  Kirche  in  Hirer  Verbindung  mit  Rom,  Gallien  u. 
Alemannien  (Freiburg  in  B.,  1867). 

3  Ussher,  Ep.  Hib.  Syll.  p.  11  f. 

4  Life  by  Jonas,  cc.  9,  10.  Cp.  Margaret  Stokes,  Three  Months  in  the 
Forests  of  France  (1895). 

8  Margaret  Stokes,  Six  Months  in  the  Apennines ,  a  Pilgrimage  in  search  of 
vestiges  of  the  Irish  Saints  in  Italy  (1892). 


440 


COLUMBAN  AND  BOBBIO. 


[CHAP. 


Constance,  where  he  spent  two  or  three  years  in  preaching  to 
the  heathen.  When  he  left  for  Italy  ( c .  612),  he  was  welcomed 
by  the  king  of  the  Lombards  and  his  queen  Theodolinda ;  and, 
S.E.  of  the  Lombard  capital  of  Pavia,  he  founded  on  the  stream 
of  the  Trebbia  the  monastery  of  Bobbio1  ( c .  613).  In  a  cavern, 
high  above  the  opposite  bank  of  the  stream,  he  died  in  615 2. 
His  life  was  written  in  the  same  century  by  Jonas,  a  monk  of 
Bobbio,  who  quotes  Virgil  and  Livy,  and  has  evidently  formed 
his  style  on  the  study  of  the  Classics.  Columban’s  ‘  belt,  chalice 
and  knife  ’  are  still  shown  in  the  sacrarium 3. 

The  monastery  founded  by  the  Irish  monk  became  a  home  of 
learning  in  northern  Italy.  In  course  of  time  its  library  received 
gifts  of  mss  of  the  fourth  and  fifth  centuries,  originally  transcribed 
for  men  of  letters  in  Rome,  and  others  of  later  date,  presented  by 
wandering  countrymen  of  the  founder,  such  as  Dungal4,  the  Irish 
monk  who  presided  over  the  school  at  Pavia  in  823.  The  first 
catalogue,  which  contained  666  mss,  including  Terence,  Lucretius, 
Virgil,  Ovid,  Lucan,  Persius,  Martial,  Juvenal  and  Claudian,  with 
Cicero,  Seneca  and  the  elder  Pliny,  was  drawn  up  in  the  tenth 
century,  and  has  been  printed  by  Muratori5.  It  is  arranged 
according  to  the  authors  and  the  donors  of  the  mss.  The 
second,  ‘restored’  in  1461  and  including  280  volumes,  was 
discovered  and  published  in  1824  by  Peyron6.  The  library  was 
explored  by  Giorgio  Merula  (1493)7,  Tommaso  Inghirami  (1496), 

1  On  the  spot  it  is  pronounced  Bobio ,  according  to  the  old  spelling  of  the 
name.  The  epitaph  on  Bp  Cummian  (d.  730)  has  Ebovio  (Margaret  Stokes, 
Six  Months  in  the  Apennines ,  p.  152). 

2  In  the  same  year  died  Aileran,  an  Irish  monk  who  borrows  from  Origen, 
Philo  and  Josephus  the  best  part  of  a  brief  explanation  of  certain  Biblical 
names  (Migne,  lxxx  327-34). 

3  M.  Stokes,  pp.  14,  1 78 f.  On  Columban,  cp.  Ozanam,  Civ.  Chret.  c.  iv; 
Ebert,  i2  617  f;  Milman,  ii  284 — 295;  Dr  Moran,  An  Irish  Missionary  and 
his  Work  (1869) ;  G.  T.  Stokes,  Irela7id  and  the  Celtic  Church ,  Lect.  vii ;  and 
M.  Stokes,  l.c. 

4  Wattenbach,  Schriftwesen  i?/i  MA ,  p.  489.  Gottlieb,  however,  maintains 
that  the  work  of  the  elder  Dungal  against  Claudius  of  Turin  was  given  by  a 
later  Dungal  in  cent.  XII  (Traube,  Abhandl.  Bayr.  Akad.  1892,  332-7). 

5  Ant.  Ital.  iii  809—880,  esp.  p.  818;  cp.  G.  Becker’s  Catalogi  Bibliothe- 
carum  Antiqui  (1885),  p.  64  ;  and  Leon  Maitre’s  Ecoles ,  p.  297. 

6  Fragmenta  Orat.  Cic.  p.  iiif.  7  Centralbl.  f.  Bibl.  v  343  f. 


XXIV.] 


MSS  FROM  BOBBIO. 


441 


and  Aulo  Giano  Parrasio  (1499).  Many  valuable  mss  were  removed 
by  Cardinal  Borromeo,  some  of  them  being  placed  in  the  Ambrosian 
Library,  which  he  was  founding  at  Milan  (1606),  while  others  were 
sent  to  the  Vatican  at  the  instance  of  Paul  V  (1618).  In  1685 
the  monastery  was  visited  by  the  learned  Benedictine,  Mabillon1. 
During  the  18th  century  a  number  of  the  remaining  volumes 
were  transported  to  Turin.  The  greater  part  have  thus  been 
dispersed  through  the  libraries  of  Rome,  Milan  and  Turin,  while 
some  have  found  their  way  to  Naples  and  Vienna2.  It  is 
practically  certain  that  the  Ambrosian  palimpsest  of  Plautus3 
and  those  of  several  of  Cicero’s  Speeches  (cent,  iv)  and  of  the 
Letters  of  Fronto,  discovered  in  the  Ambrosian  Library  early  in 
the  19th  century,  all  came  from  the  monastery  founded  by  the 
Irish  monk  at  Bobbio ;  but  the  monks  of  that  monastery,  while 
they  deserve  our  gratitude  for  preserving  these  mss  at  all,  have 
made  the  task  of  deciphering  them  needlessly  difficult  by  inscribing 
on  these  ancient  scrolls  later  copies  of  works  so  easily  accessible 
as  the  Vulgate,  and  the  Acts  of  the  Councils  and  the  works  of 
St  Augustine.  Among  other  mss,  which  once  belonged  to  Bobbio, 
may  be  mentioned  fragments  of  Symmachus  and  the  Theodosian 
Code;  scholia  on  Cicero4  (cent,  v),  mss  of  St  Luke  (v-vi),  St 
Severinus  (vi),  Josephus  (vi-vii),  St  Ambrose,  St  Augustine  and 
St  Maximus  (vii),  Gregory’s  Dialogues  ( c .  750),  and  St  Isidore 
(before  840) 5.  Lastly  we  cannot  forget  the  ‘Muratorian  fragment’ 

1  Iter  Italicum ,  215.  He  describes  it  as  ‘the  Bobian  (called  by  the  ancients 
the  Ebobian )  monastery’. 

2  M.  Stokes,  281-2.  On  the  mss  in  Turin,  cp.  Ottino  (1890);  on  those  in 
Rome  and  Milan,  Seebass  in  Centralbl.  f  Bibl.  xiii;  on  others,  Gottlieb,  ib. 
iv  442  f,  and  Gebhardt,  ib.  v  343-62,  383 — 431,  538. 

3  Studemund,  Apographum ,  p.  v  f,  Neque  unde  neque  quo  tempore  codex 
in  bibliothecam  Ambrosianam  pervenerit,  certo  constat... Ubi  sacer  codex 
conscriptus  sit  nescimus.  Bobbii  eum  conscriptum  esse  et  vulgo  credunt  et 

inde  probabile  fit,  quod  rude  ac  parum  elegans  scripturae  genus . 

amanuensem  non  Italum  fuisse  persuadet ;  itemque  genus  scripturae  Anglo- 
saxonicum  quo  supplementa  ilia  insignia  sunt,  vix  amanuensi  ex  Italia  oriundo 
tribuerim. 

4  ed.  Orelli,  v  ii  214 — 369;  recent  literature  in  Bursian’s  Jahresb.  cxiii 
(1902)  192  f. 

5  Facsimiles  from  all  the  nine  mss  here  dated  are  published  by  the  Palaeo- 
graphical  Society.  The  Medicean  Virgil  (v)  also  came  from  Bobbio. 


442 


ST  GALLEN  AND  RESBACUS. 


[CHAP. 


Gallus  and 
St  Gallen 


(cent,  viii  or  earlier),  the  earliest  extant  list  of  the  books  of  the 
New  Testament. 

When  the  founder  of  Bobbio  left  for  Italy,  one  at  least  of  his 
companions,  Gallus  by  name,  remained  on  the  shore 
of  the  Lake  of  Constance.  Accompanied  by  several 
of  the  other  Irish  monks,  he  founded  on  a  lofty  site 
in  the  neighbourhood  (614)  the  monastery  which  has  given  the 
name  of  St  Gallen  to  the  town  which  surrounds  it.  The  founder 
died  in  extreme  old  age  about  645.  The  monastery  of  St  Gallen 
has  proved  no  less  important  than  that  of  Bobbio  as  a  treasure- 
house  of  Latin  as  well  as  Irish  literature.  As  we  shall  see  in  the 
sequel,  at  least  four  unique  mss  of  Asconius,  Valerius  Flaccus, 
Statius  and  Manilius  were  there  discovered  in  1416  by  Poggio, 
together  with  a  complete  copy  of  Quintilian1.  The  Library  still 
possesses  a  few  leaves  of  a  ms  of  Virgil  belonging  to  the  fourth  or 
fifth  century2.  Another  pupil  of  Columban,  Agilius  (St  Aile),  was 
the  first  abbot  of  the  monastery  founded  at  Resbacus  (Rebais,  E. 
of  Paris)  in  634s,  and  the  mss  there  copied  included  Terence, 
Cicero,  Virgil,  Horace,  Donatus,  Priscian  and  Boethius4. 

Within  less  than  25  years  after  the  Irish  monks  had  founded 
Bobbio  and  St  Gallen,  and  thus  unconsciously 
promoted  the  preservation  of  some  of  the  most 
important  remains  of  Latin  literature,  Isidore,  bishop 
of  Seville  {c.  570 — 636),  produced  an  encyclopaedic  work  which 
gathered  up  for  the  Middle  Ages  much  of  the  learning  of  the 
ancient  world.  The  work  is  known  as  the  Origines ,  and  is 
remarkable  for  the  great  variety  of  its  contents  and  for  its 
numerous  citations  from  earlier  authorities.  The  friend,  for 
whom  it  was  composed,  divided  it  into  20  Books,  describing  the 
whole  as  a  vast  volume  of  ‘  etymologies  ’  including  everything  that 
ought  to  be  known.  Books  1 — in  are  on  the  liberal  arts,  grammar 
(including  metre)  filling  a  whole  Book ;  iv,  on  medicine  and  on 


Isidore  of 
Seville 


1  Cp.  F.  Weidmann,  Gesch.  d.  Bibliothek  von  St  Gallen  (1842);  Catalogues 
of  the  mss  in  G.  Becker’s  Catalogi  (1885);  cp.  Leon  Maftre’s  Acoles,  p.  278  f, 
and  Ozanam’s  Civ.  Chret.  p.  487  f. 

2  Facsimile  on  p.  185.  3  Jonas,  Vita  S.  Columbani ,  26. 

4  Greith,  Altirische  Kirche,  p.  291  (Denk,  Gallo-Frdnkisch.  Unterricht, 
257  f).  Perrona  Scottorum  (Peronne,  near  Corbie)  was  founded  by  Irish 
monks  c.  650. 


XXIV.] 


ISIDORE  OF  SEVILLE. 


443 


libraries;  v,  on  law  and  chronology;  vi,  on  the  books  of  the 
Bible;  vn,  on  the  heavenly  and  the  earthly  hierarchy;  vm,  on 
the  Church  and  on  sects  (no  less  than  68  in  number) ;  ix,  on 
language,  on  peoples,  and  on  official  titles ;  x,  on  etymology ; 
xi,  on  man ;  xn,  on  beasts  and  birds ;  xm,  the  world  and  its 
parts ;  xiv,  physical  geography;  xv,  political  geography,  public 
buildings,  land-surveying  and  road-making ;  xvi,  stones  and 
metals ;  xvii,  agriculture  and  horticulture ;  xvm,  the  vocabulary 
of  war,  litigation  and  public  games ;  xix,  ships  and  houses,  dress 
and  personal  adornment ;  and  xx,  meats  and  drinks,  tools  and 
furniture.  The  work  is  mainly  founded  on  earlier  compilations, 
Book  ii  being  chiefly  taken  from  the  Greek  texts  translated  by 
Boethius ;  the  first  part  of  iv  from  Caelius  Aurelianus ;  xi  from 
Lactantius ;  and  xn — xiv,  xv  &c.,  from  Pliny  and  Solinus ; 
while  its  plan,  as  a  whole,  and  many  of  its  details,  appear  to  have 
been  borrowed  from  the  lost  Prata  of  Suetonius1.  The  author 
also  makes  use  of  Lucretius,  Sallust,  and  an  epitome  of  Vitruvius, 
with  Jerome,  Augustine,  Orosius  and  others2.  The  work  was  so 
highly  esteemed  as  an  encyclopaedia  of  classical  learning  that,  to 
a  large  extent,  it  unfortunately  superseded  the  study  of  the  classical 
authors  themselves.  Among  its  compiler’s  other  writings  is  a 
Chronicle  founded  on  Julius  Africanus  and  on  Jerome’s  rendering 
of  Eusebius  (ending  with  615),  a  History  of  the  Goths,  a  con¬ 
tinuation  of  Gennadius  De  Viris  lllustribus ,  and  a  treatise  De 
Natura  Rerum,  widely  known  in  the  Middle  Ages.  We  gain  a 
vivid  impression  of  his  own  surroundings  from  the  verses  written 
by  himself  for  the  14  presses  {armaria),  which  composed  his 
library  and  were  adorned  with  the  portraits  of  22  authors. 
Theology  is  represented  by  Origen,  Hilary,  Ambrose,  Augustine, 
Jerome,  Chrysostom  and  Cyprian ;  poetry  by  Prudentius,  Avitus, 
Juvencus  and  Sedulius;  ecclesiastical  history  by  Eusebius  and 
Orosius ;  law  by  Theodosius,  Paulus  and  Gaius ;  medicine  by 
Cosmas,  Damian,  Hippocrates  and  Galen ;  and,  besides  these  20, 
we  have  Gregory  the  Great  and  Isidore’s  elder  brother,  Leander. 
Each  of  these  is  commemorated  in  elegiac  verse,  beginning  with 

X. 

1  Nettleship,  i  330  f. 

2  Dressel,  De  Isidori  Originum  Fontibus ,  Turin  (1874). 


444 


GREEK  IN  SPAIN. 


[CHAP. 


three  couplets  on  the  library  in  general,  implying  that  it  contained 
secular  as  well  as  sacred  literature  : — 


‘  sunt  hie  plura  sacra,  sunt  hie  mundalia  plura : 
ex  his  si  qua  placent  carmina,  tolle,  lege, 
prata  (vicles)  plena  spinis,  et  copia  florum; 
si  non  vis  spinas  sumere,  sume  rosas...’ 

The  series  ends  with  some  lines  addressed  ‘To  an  Intruder’,  the 
last  couplet  of  which  runs  as  follows: — 


*  non  patitur  quenquam  coram  se  scriba  loquentem ; 
non  est  hie  quod  agas,  garrule,  perge  foras  ’  h 

Though  Isidore  was  himself  familiar  with  many  portions  of  pagan 
literature,  the  only  authors  which  he  permitted  his  monks  to  read 
were  the  Grammarians.  He  held  it  safer  for  them  to  remain  in 
humble  ignorance  than  to  be  elated  with  the  pride  of  knowledge, 
or  led  into  error  by  reading  dangerous  works2.  In  support  of 
this  narrow  view,  he  even  appeals  to  the  Vulgate  rendering  of 
Psalm  lxxi  where,  by  combining  the  end  of  verse  15  (as  translated 
from  an  inferior  variant  in  the  lxx)  with  the  beginning  of  the 
following  verse,  he  obtains  the  singular  text : — quia  non  cognovi 
litter atur am* ,  introibo  in  potentias  Domini 4.  Had  he  referred  to 
Cassiodorus,  he  might  there  have  found  a  better  motto  in  the 
prayer  : — praesta ,  Domitie,  legentibus  profectum 5. 

Isidore  has  the  reputation  of  having  been  ‘learned  in  Greek 
and  Latin  and  Hebrew’6.  He  distinguished  between 
five  varieties  of  Greek,  i.e.  the  four  dialects  and  the 
KOLvrj,  and  eulogised  it  as  excelling  all  languages  in 
euphony7.  But  his  knowledge  of  the  language  was  very  slight. 
Acquaintance  with  Greek  is  attested  in  Spain  at  a  still  earlier  date 


Greek  in 
Spain 


1  Migne,  lxxxiii  1107;  cp.  J.  W.  Clark’s  Care  of  Books,  p.  46. 

2  ib.  877,  Isidori  Regula,  c.  8,  gentilium  libros  vel  haereticorum  volumina 
monachus  legere  caveat ;  melius  est  enim  eorum  perniciosa  dogmata  ignorare 
quam  per  inexperientiam  in  aliquem  laqueum  erroris  incurrere. 

3  ypa/uL/xaTeias  v.  1.  for  xpayp-aTeias. 

4  Senteniiarum  Liber ,  iii  13. 

5  Inst,  i  33.  On  Isidore  in  general,  cp.  Ebert,  i2  588 — 602;  Teuffel, 
§  496 ;  Saintsbury,  i  400  f. 

6  Migne,  lxxxi  53  D,  86  b. 

7  Ep.  ix  1,  4. 


...  J 


XXIV.] 


GREEK  IN  GAUL. 


445 


in  the  person  of  the  ‘  world-renowned  Spaniard  ’  who  took  a 
prominent  part  in  the  Council  of  Nicaea,  Hosius,  bishop  of 
Cordova  (d.  357),  who  is  said  to  have  brought  a  Greek  teacher 
back  with  him  from  the  East  to  aid  him  in  the  study  of  Plato. 
John,  the  Gothic  bishop  of  Gerona  (590),  had  in  his  youth  spent 
seven  years  in  Constantinople  with  a  view  to  perfecting  himself  in 
Greek  and  Latin1;  and,  about  the  time  of  Isidore’s  death,  some 
knowledge  of  Greek  is  shown  by  Julian,  bishop  of  Toledo  (d.  690), 
who  gives  Greek  titles  to  two  of  his  works2,  and  touches  twice  on 
the  beauty  of  the  style  of  Demosthenes3;  while,  in  657,  another 
bishop  of  that  see,  Eugenius  III,  declares  that  it  would  need  the 
powers  of  a  Socrates  or  a  Plato,  a  Cicero  or  a  Varro,  to  do  justice 
to  the  memory  of  Gregory  the  Great4. 

About  the  same  date  (659)  in  Gaul,  we  find  St  Ouen, 
archbishop  of  Rouen,  urging  the  superiority  of 
sacred  over  secular  writings  by  asking  what  was 
the  worth  of  philosophers  such  as  Pythagoras,  Socrates,  Plato  and 
Aristotle,  or  the  ‘  sad  strains  of  those  wicked  poets  ’,  Homer, 
Virgil  and  Menander,  or  the  histories  of  Sallust,  Herodotus  and 
Livy,  or  the  eloquence  of  Lysias,  Gracchus,  Demosthenes  and 
Tully,  or  the  acumen  of  Horace,  Solinus,  Varro,  Democritus, 
Plautus  and  Cicero5.  The  odd  juxtaposition  of  some  of  these 
names  excites  suspicion,  and  the  mention  of  Tully  and  Cicero, 
Democritus  and  Menander,  suggests  a  doubt  whether  St  Ouen 
had  really  read  the  secular  writings  on  which  he  casts  such 
profound  contempt.  About  a  century  before  his  death,  two 
celebrated  Graeco-Latin  mss,  the  Codex  Bezae  of  the  Gospels  and 
Acts,  and  the  Codex  Claromontanus  of  St  Paul’s  Epistles,  had 
been  copied  in  Western  Europe,  possibly  in  Gaul  itself;  and 
Gaul  may  also  claim  a  Graeco-Latin  glossary  of  the  seventh 
century6.  In  the  same  century  the  library  at  Liguge  contained 
‘nearly  all  the  Greek  and  Latin  Fathers’7.-  Early  in  the  next,  we 

1  Isidore,  De  Viris  III.,  c.  44. 

2  TrpoyvwGTiKwv  and  avTLKe i/xlvuv',  Migne,  xcvi  453,  495. 

3  ib.  727. 

4  Migne,  lxxxvii  415  c. 

5  Migne,  lxxxvii  479. 

6  Harley  MS  5792  ;  Palaeographical  Society’s  Facsimiles ,  ii  25. 

7  Hist.  Litt.  de  la  France ,  ii  429. 


446 


CHRODEGANG  OF  METZ. 


[CHAP. 


find  a  Greek  hermit  living  to  the  S.  of  Nimes  in  the  person  of 
Aegidius  (St  Giles),  who  is  described  as  a  native  of  Athens 
(d.  725). 

While  the  evidence  for  a  knowledge  of  Greek  at  this  time  is 
slight  indeed  in  Gaul,  it  is  even  slighter  in  Germany, 

Germany 

where  there  is  no  proof  of  any  interest  in  Greek 
before  the  revival  of  learning  under  Charles  the  Great.  Literary 
interests  were,  however,  partially  revived  in  the  northern  monas¬ 
teries  under  the  influence  of  the  Benedictine  Chrodegang, 
archbishop  of  Metz  (742 — 766),  who  had  been  Chancellor  to 
Charles  Martel  from  737  to  741.  The  rules  which  he  framed 
for  the  restoration  of  discipline1  were  adopted  in  the  monasteries 
of  France,  Italy,  Germany  and  England,  and  a  certain  uniformity 
was  thus  secured  in  the  singing,  the  language  and  the  script  of 
the  monastic  schools  which  continued  until  the  time  of  Alcuin2. 
Meanwhile,  in  Italy,  four  of  the  popes  of  the  seventh  and 
ital  eighth  centuries  were  actually  Greeks  by  birth. 

Again,  in  648,  Maurus,  archbishop  of  Ravenna, 
writes  in  Greek3  to  Pope  Martin  I  (649 — 655),  who  sends  to 
personages  in  the  East  a  number  of  letters  written  in  Greek4,  but 
there  is  no  proof  that  the  Greek  was  his  own,  though  in  the 
Lateran  Council  of  this  time  (649)  we  have  many  references  to 
the  Greek  Fathers.  It  is  supposed  that  it  was  under  Martin  I 
that  the  first  Greek  monasteries  were  founded  in  Rome5.  The 
reply  sent  by  Pope  Agatho  (■ c .  679)  to  a  Byzantine  emperor  is 
preserved  in  Greek  as  well  as  in  Latin,  together  with  the  Greek 
original  of  another  letter.  The  Acts  of  the  third  Council  of 
Constantinople  were  translated  from  Greek  into  Latin  by  Pope 
Leo  II  (683).  But  Greek  must  have  been  on  the  decline,  as  the 
year  690  is  regarded  as  the  date  of  the  temporary  extinction  of 
that  language  in  Italy6.  In  the  following  century  the  iconoclastic 

1  D’Achery’s  Spicilegium,  i  564!;  Migne,  lxxxix  1053 — 1126;  Life  in 
Pertz,  Mon.  xii  552-72; 

2  Denk,  Gallo- Frdnkisch.  Unterricht ,  271-6;  cp.  Putnam’s  Books  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  i  128  f. 

3  Migne,  lxxxvii  103.  4  ib.  119 — 198. 

5  Hardouin,  Conciles ,  iii  719;  Gidel,  Nouvelles  Etudes,  p.  150. 

6  Martin  Crusius,  Annales  Suevici,  274  (Gidel,  p.  156). 


XXIV.] 


GREEK  IN  ITALY. 


447 


decrees  of  727  and  816  drove  many  of  the  Greek  monks  and  their 
lay  adherents  from  the  Empire  in  the  West  to  the  South  of  Italy 
and  even  to  Rome  itself.  Gregory  III  (731 — 741)  built  them 
a  monastery  dedicated  to  St  Chrysogonus.  In  750  the  Greek 
Pope,  Zacharias,  received  the  Greek  nuns  who  brought  from  the 
convent  of  St  Anastasia  a  celebrated  image  of  the  Virgin  and 
the  relics  of  St  Gregory  Nazianzen;  Paul  I  (761)  was  equally 
hospitable  to  the  monks,  who  probably  procured  for  him  the 
Greek  mss  which  he  sent  to  Pepin-le-Bref ;  while  Hadrian  I  (780) 
enlarged  for  the  benefit  of  the  Greeks  the  church  which  had  been 
known  since  the  end  of  the  sixth  century  as  that  of  S.  Maria  in 
schola  Graeca ,  but  was  thenceforth  called  S.  Maria  i?i  Cosmedin, 
the  new  name  being  taken  (as  at  Ravenna)  from  the  quarter 
of  Constantinople  named  Kosmedion.  In  818  the  existing 
monasteries  were  too  few  to  contain  all  the  Greek  monks  that 
flocked  to  Rome,  and  Pascal  I  gave  the  fugitives  the  monastery 
of  St  Praxedis,  while  other  popes  in  the  same  century,  e.g. 
Stephen  IV  (817)  and  Leo  IV  (850),  founded  monasteries  for  them 
in  Rome  and  in  Southern  Italy1.  The  South  of  Italy  continued 
to  be  politically  connected  with  Constantinople  from  the  time 
of  the  recovery  of  Italy  by  the  generals  of  Justinian  (5 5 3 )2  to  its 
capture  by  the  Normans  (1055),  and,  in  the  extreme  South, 
Greek  monks  of  the  Basilian  order  were  still  in  existence  in  the 
age  of  the  Renaissance.  Even  at  the  present  day  there  are 
villages  in  the  ancient  Calabria  near  the  ‘heel’,  and  in  the  modern 
Calabria  near  the  ‘toe’  of  Italy,  where  Greek  continues  to  be 
spoken  with  slight  varieties  of  dialect,  while  the  tradition  of  Greek 
as  a  living  language  lingers  in  other  parts  of  those  regions3.  The 
decline  of  learning  in  Northern  Italy,  at  the  time  when  the  Greek 
monks  were  flocking  to  her  Southern  shores,  is  attested  by 

1  Muratori,  Script.  Ital.  Ill  i  215,  234.  Cp.  Gardthausen,  Gr.  Paldographie, 

p.  418. 

2  Bury,  Later  Roman  Empire,  ii  439  f,  447  f. 

3  Morosi,  Studi  sui  dialetti  greci  della  terra  cC  Otranto,  Lecce  (1870),  and 
Dialetti . . .in  Calabria  (1874),  and  Zambelli,  'IraXocW^LKci,  pp.  23,  202;  cp. 
Roger  Bacon,  Opus  Tert.  33 ;  Cramer,  i  26 ;  Gidel,  Nouvelles  Etudes , 
145 — 156,  and  Tozer  in  J.  H.  S.,  x  11 — 42,  esp.  38  f ;  also  A.  Dresdner, 
Kultur  u.  Sittengeschichte  der  italienisclien  Geistlichkeit  im  10.  u.  1 1.  Jahr- 
hundert  (1890),  p.  195  k 


448 


GREEK  IN  BRITAIN  AND  IRELAND.  [CHAP. 


Lothair  I,  who,  in  his  decree  of  823,  deplores  the  general 
extinction  of  learning  and  reorganises  education  throughout  his 
Italian  dominions  by  instituting  central  schools  at  nine  important 
places, — Pavia,  Ivrea,  Turin,  Cremona,  Florence,  Fermo,  Verona, 
Vicenza  and  Friuli1.  The  head  of  the  school  at  Pavia  was  an 
Irishman. 

Early  indications  of  a  knowledge  of  Greek  in  Britain  have 
been  traced  in  certain  Latin  renderings  from  the 
an^  Ireland  Old  Testament  apparently  taken  directly  from  the 

lxx.  These  are  contained  in  the  anonymous  work 
De  Mirabilibus  Sacrae  Scripturae  (c.  660),  and  in  a  ms  of  Irish 
Canons  (early  in  cent.  vm)2.  Three  Greek  letters  (ct?)  may  be 
seen  on  an  ancient  block  of  tin,  now  in  the  Penzance  Museum3 ; 
and  some  slight  knowledge  of  Greek  is  implied  in  an  Irish  Canon 
of  the  end  of  the  seventh  century,  where  a  monk  is  thus  defined  : — 
monachns  Graece ,  Latine  unalis ,  sive  quod  solus  in  eremo  vitam 
solitariam  ducat ,  sive  quod  si?ie  impediment  mundiali  mundutn 
habitet 4.  In  the  Book  of  Armagh  ( c .  807)  the  Lord’s  Prayer  is 
written  in  Latin  words  but  in  Greek  characters ;  and,  down  to  the 
days  of  archbishop  Ussher,  a  church  at  Trim  was  called  the 
‘Greek  church’5,  while  its  site  was  still  known  in  1846  as 
the  ‘Greek  park’6.  The  Irish  monk,  Virgil  the  geometer,  who 
became  the  first  bishop  of  Salzburg  at  the  end  of  the  eighth 
century,  was  charged  by  Boniface  with  believing  in  the  existence 
of  the  antipodes7;  and,  half  a  century  later,  an  Irish  monk  of 
Liege,  named  Sedulius,  was  copying  a  Greek  Psalter,  writing  Latin 

1  Muratori,  Script.  Rer.  Ital.  1  ii  15 1  ;  Antiq.  Medii  Ami,  iii  815; 
Tiraboschi,  iii  179  k 

2  J.  R.  Lumby,  Greek  Learning  in  the  Western  Church  during  the  seventh 

and  eighth  centuries ,  Cambridge  (1878),  p.  3.  ‘  In  the  AS  church  the  Greek 

creed  was  sung  in  service,  as  at  St  Gallen  and  Reichenau  ’ ;  ‘  King  Athelstan’s 
psalter  ’  includes  the  Lord’s  prayer  and  the  apostles’  creed  in  AS  characters, 
but  in  the  Greek  language ;  See  esp.  Caspari’s  Quellen  zur  Gesch.  des  Tauf- 
symbols ,  iii  (Christiania,  1875)  188-99,  2I9-34>  466 — 510  (Mayor  and  Lumby 
on  Bede,  p.  298  f). 

3  Haddan  and  Stubbs,  Councils  etc.  i  699. 

4  ib.  i  1 70  f. 

5  Ussher,  Ep.  Hibern.  Syll.  note  16. 

6  G.  T.  Stokes,  Ireland  and  the  Celtic  Church ,  p.  218  n. 

7  ib.  224;  Ozanam,  133  k  Boniface,  Ep.  lxvi,  Jaffe  iii  191. 


XXIV.] 


THEODORE  OF  TARSUS. 


449 


verses1,  making  extracts  from  Origen  and  expounding  Jerome2. 
Another  Irish  monk,  the  grammarian  Dicuil  ( c .  825),  in  a  short 
treatise  on  Geography3  ranging  from  Iceland  to  the  pyramids  of 
Egypt,  gives  an  impression  of  very  wide  attainments  by  naming  the 
following  Greek  authors : — Artemidorus,  Clitarchus,  Dicaearchus, 
Ephorus,  Eudoxus,  Hecataeus,  Herodotus,  Homer,  Onesicritus, 
Philemon,  Pytheas,  Thucydides,  Timosthenes  and  Xenophon  of 
Lampsacus.  His  work  is  mainly  founded  on  Caesar,  Pliny  and 
Solinus  and  includes  quotations  from  Pomponius  Mela,  Orosius, 
Priscian  and  Isidore  of  Seville4.  Macrobius  and  Priscian  are  his 
authorities  on  grammar5. 

While  Ireland  sent  forth  Columban  to  found  monasteries  in 
Eastern  France  and  Northern  Italy  in  585  and  612  respectively, 
Rome,  in  the  person  of  Gregory,  sent  Augustine  to  Britain  in  the 
interval  between  the  above  dates.  Augustine  arrived  in  Kent 
in  597  and  died  archbishop  of  Canterbury  in  605.  Some  sixty 
years  later,  the  archbishopric  was  offered  by  Pope  Vitalian  first  to 
Hadrian,  who  is  described  as  ‘  most  skilful  in  both  the  Greek  and 
Latin  tongues  ’,  and  finally  to  Theodore,  who  was  born  at  Tarsus 
and  educated  at  Athens,  and  therefore  familiar 
with  Greek6.  This  Greek  archbishop  (668 — 690)  of^rsus^ 

founded  a  school  at  Canterbury  for  the  study  of 
Greek,  and  bestowed  upon  his  foundation  a  number  of  books 
in  his  native  language.  Nine  hundred  years  later,  archbishop 
Parker  showed  an  antiquarian  at  Canterbury  copies  of  ‘Homer 
and  some  other  Greek  authors,  beautifully  written  on  thick  paper 
with  the  name  of  this  Theodore  prefixed  in  the  front,  to  whose 
library  he  reasonably  thought  (being  led  thereto  by  show  of  great 

1  Poetae  Lalini  Aevi  Car.  iii  1 5 1 — 237  Traube.  He  often  borrows  from 
Virgil,  Ovid  and  Fortunatus. 

2  G.  T.  Stokes,  pp.  225-8;  cp.  Ebert,  ii  c.  6;  Pirenne,  Sedulius  de  Liege 
(Bruxelles,  1882);  Traube,  Abhandl.  Bayr.  Akad.  1892,338 — 346.  His  comm, 
on  Eutyches,  founded  on  Macrobius  and  Priscian,  shows  a  knowledge  of  Greek 
(Hagen,  Anecd.  Helv.  1 — 38). 

3  De  Mensura  Orbis  Terrae. 

4  ib.  214-6;  Ebert,  ii  392-4;  cp.  Letronne,  Recherches ,  ii  3,  vi  8. 

5  Teuffel,  §  473,  9. 

6  Described  by  the  Greek  Pope  Zacharias  in  Bonifatii  Epp.,  185  Jaffe,  as 
‘  Greco- Latinus  ante  philosophus  et  Athenis  eruditus  ’. 


S. 


29 


450 


ALDHELM. 


[CHAP. 


antiquity)  that  they  sometime  belonged’1;  but  there  is  no  doubt 
that  this  ms  of  Homer,  which  is  still  preserved  among  the  Parker 
mss  in  the  Library  of  Corpus  Christi  College,  Cambridge,  belonged 
not  to  Theodore  of  Tarsus  (who  had  died  eight  centuries  before  it 
was  written),  but  to  Linacre’s  friend,  William  Tilley  of  Selling2. 
With  the  help  of  Hadrian,  who  had  declined  the  archbishopric, 
Theodore  made  many  of  the  monasteries  of  England  schools  of 
Greek  and  Latin  learning,  so  that,  in  the  time  of  Bede  (673 — 735), 
some  of  the  scholars  who  still  survived,  such  as  Tobias,  bishop  of 
Rochester  (d.  726)3,  were  as  familiar  with  Latin  and  Greek  as 
with  their  mother-tongue4.  The  Worcestershire  monk,  Tatwine, 
who  became  archbishop  of  Canterbury  (d.  734),  besides  writing 
riddles  in  Latin  verse,  was  the  author  of  a  Latin  grammar  founded 
on  Donatus  and  his  commentators5;  and  the  tradition  of  Greek 
descended  to  the  early  days  of  Odo  (875 — 961),  archbishop  of 
Canterbury6. 

Among  the  pupils  of  the  school  at  Canterbury  was  Aldhelm 

A^h  j  {c‘  650 — 709),  who  was  also  educated  under  the 
Irish  scholar,  Maidulf,  the  founder  of  the  monastery 
of  Malmesbury,  of  which  Aldhelm  afterwards  became  abbot. 
Most  of  his  literary  labours  were  associated  with  Malmesbury, 
which  continued  to  be  a  seat  of  learning  down  to  the  later 
Middle  Ages.  Aldhelm  visited  Rome  in  690  and  was  bishop 
of  Sherborne  from  705  to  his  death.  The  church  that  he  built 
at  Bradford  on  Avon  is  still  standing.  In  the  records  of  his  life 
we  are  told  that  ‘he  had  mastered  all  the  idioms  of  the  Greek 
language,  and  wrote  and  spoke  it,  as  though  he  were  a  Greek  by 
birth’.  ‘  King  Ina  had  hired  the  services  of  two  most  skilful 
teachers  of  Greek  from  Athens’7;  and  Ina’s  kinsman,  Aldhelm, 

‘  made  such  rapid  strides  in  learning  that  ere  long  he  was  thought 

t 

1  Lambarde,  Perambulation  of  Kent ,  p.  233  ed.  1576  ;  Milman,  Lat. 
Christ . ,  ii  272. 

‘2  M.  R.  James,  Abp.  Parker's  MSS  (1899),  p.  9. 

3  Bede,  H.  E.  v  8,  20,  23. 

4  ib.  iv  2  (with  Mayor’s  note  on  p.  298). 

5  Teuffel,  §  500,  4. 

6  Migne,  cxxxiii  934  B — c. 

7  Migne,  lxxxix  66. 


XXIV.] 


BEDE. 


451 


a  better  scholar  than  either  his  Greek  or  Latin  teachers’1.  He 
often  introduces  Greek  words  into  his  Latin  letters,  an  affectation 
censured  by  William  of  Malmesbury2;  he  alludes  to  Aristotle  and 
the  Stoics,  and  employs  Greek  terms  in  defining  Greek  metres. 
His  dialogue  on  Latin  prosody  (which  fills  forty-five  columns  in 
Migne)  is  enlivened  with  a  number  of  ingenious  riddles  in  verse, 
which  the  pupil  is  expected  to  solve  and  to  scan.  In  writing 
on  Latin  metres,  he  naturally  quotes  Latin  poets,  such  as  Terence, 
Virgil,  Horace,  Juvenal  and  Persius.  His  principal  prose  work, 
De  Laudibus  Virginitatis ,  ends  with  a  promise  (which  was  duly 
fulfilled)  of  treating  the  same  theme  in  verse: — ‘the  rhetorical 
foundations  being  laid  and  the  walls  of  prose  constructed,  he 
would  roof  it  with  dactylic  and  trochaic  tiles’3.  His  Latin  prose 
is  unduly  florid4.  His  prose  and  verse  alike  are  marked  by  a  love 
of  Greek  idioms  and  of  alliteration5.  His  main  claim  to  distinction 
is  that  ‘he  was  the  first  Englishman  who  cultivated  classical 
learning  with  any  success,  and  the  first  of  whom  any  literary 
remains  are  preserved’6. 

While  Aldhelm  has  been  justly  called  the  father  of  Anglo- 
Latin  verse,  his  younger  and  far  more  famous  con-  fiede 

temporary,  Bede  (673 — 735),  has  left  his  mark  in 
literary  history  almost  exclusively  in  the  field  of  prose.  He  spent 

1  ib.  85.  His  familiarity  with  Greek  and  Latin  is  mentioned  by  the 
‘  Scottus  ignoti  nominis  ’  who  wants  to  borrow  a  book  for  a  fortnight  and 
offers  himself  as  a  pupil : — dum  te  praestantem  ingenio  facundiaque  Romana 
ac  vario  flore  litterarum,  etiam  Graecorum  more,  non  nesciam,  ex  ore  tuo, 
fonte  videlicet  scientiae  purissimo,  discere  malo,  quam  ex  aliquo  (alio  ?) 
quolibet  potare  turbulento  magistro;  Bonif.  Ep.  4  (Mayor’s  Bede ,  p.  298). 

2  Gesta  Pontificum,  v  §  196,  p.  344;  Warton’s  Eng.  Poetry ,  Diss.  II, 
p.  cxxxv  (ed.  1824);  Cramer,  i  41. 

3  H.  Morley’s  English  Writers,  ii  135. 

4  Cp.  Ep.  ad  Eahfridum,  lxxxix  94  Migne,... ‘  Hiberniae  rus,  discentium 
opulans  vernansque  (ut  ita  dixerim)  pascuosa  numerositate  lectorum,  quemad- 
modum  poli  cardines  astriferis  micantium  ornantur  vibraminibus  siderum 
‘The  flowers  of  his  eloquence  are  reserved  for  Irish  friends  or  Irish  pupils’ 
(Haddan’s  Remains,  267).  His  metrical  studies  are  mentioned  in  his  letter  to 
Hedda,  bp  of  Winchester  (676 — 705),  Jaffe  iii  32. 

5  Ebert,  i2  622-34;  Milman,  ii  279 f;  Teuffel,  §  500,  2;  Mayor’s  Bede, 
p.  201;  Traube,  S.  Ber.  Bayr.  Akad.  1900,  477-9;  Bp  Browne  (1903). 

6  Stubbs  in  Diet.  Chr.  Biogr.  Cp.  Ozanam,  Civ.  Chret.  p.  493-7. 

29 — 2 


452 


BEDE. 


[CHAP. 


his  whole  life  in  the  monastery  of  Jarrow,  dividing  his  time 
between  the  duties  of  religion  and  learning1.  He  began  his  literary 
work  at  the  age  of  30,  finding  copious  materials  in  the  books 
which  had  been  brought  from  Rome  and  elsewhere  by  his  own 
teachers,  Benedict  Biscop  and  Ceolfrid.  Even  on  his  death-bed 
he  was  working  still,  and  the  last  hours  of  his  life  saw  the  com¬ 
pletion  of  his  translation  of  St  John’s  Gospel  into  Anglo-Saxon2. 

In  the  Historia  Ecclesiastica  gentis  Anglorum  (731)  we  have  in¬ 
teresting  references  to  the  generosity  with  which  Irish  professors 
received  English  pupils  (in  614)  and  furnished  them  gratis  with 
books  and  teaching3,  the  diffusion  of  learning  by  Theodore  and 
Hadrian  and  their  pupils4,  the  studies  of  the  English  in  Rome5, 
and  the  collection  and  circulation  of  books  in  England6.  The 
author  appears  throughout  as  a  master  of  the  learning  of  his  times, 
as  (in  Fuller’s  phrase)  ‘the  most  general  scholar  of  his  age  ’7.  His 
diction,  which  is  clear,  natural  and  comparatively  pure,  gives  the 
surest  proof  of  mental  discipline  won  by  the  study  of  the  ancients 
and  of  the  chief  Fathers  of  the  Church. 

Of  Benedict  Biscop  he  tells  us  that,  from  each  of  his  five 
visits  to  Rome,  he  returned  with  great  store  of  books8  and 
pictures.  Bede’s  chronological  works  are  founded  on  Jerome’s 
edition  of  Eusebius,  and  on  Augustine  and  Isidore.  His  skill  in 
Latin  verse  is  shown  in  his  elegiacs  on  Queen  Etheldrida9,  and  in 
his  hexameters  on  the  miracles  of  St  Cuthbert.  He  also  wrote  a 
treatise  on  metre,  with  an  appendix  on  the  figures  of  speech  used 
in  the  Scriptures.  His  Greek  learning  is  indicated  in  this  treatise 
and  in  the  references  to  a  Greek  ms  of  the  Acts  which  are  to 
be  found  in  his  Liber  Retractionum.  The  Latin  authors  most 
frequently  quoted  by  him  are  Cicero,  Virgil  and  Horace,  and 

1  H.E.  v.  24  (quoted  on  p.  429). 

2  Cuthbert  quoted  in  Mayor’s  Bede ,  p.  179,  and  P'uller,  ib.  192. 

3  iii  27.  4  iv  18;  v  20. 

5  v  19.  6  v  15,  20. 

7  Fuller’s  Worthies ,  p.  292,  ed.  1662. 

8  Vitae  Abbatum .  Of  his  fourth  journey  it  is  stated  ‘eum  innumerabilem 

librorum  omnis  generis  copiam  apportasse’.  He  also  obtained  books  at 
Vienne;  and  his  sixth  journey  (685)  was  almost  entirely  devoted  to  the 

collection  of  books,  including  classical  works. 

9  //.  E.  iv  20. 


XXIV.] 


BONIFACE  AND  FULDA. 


453 


(doubtless  at  second-hand)  Lucilius  and  Varro.  The  decline  of 
learning  at  his  death  is  lamented  by  William  of  Malmesbury  in 
the  brief  tribute  paid  to  his  memory : — sepulta  est  cum  eo  gestorum 
omnis paene  notitia  usque  ad  nostra  tempora  (cent,  xn).-  adeo  nullus 
Anglorum  studiorum  eius  aemulus ,  nullus  gloriarum  eius  sequax 
fuit1. 

It  was  not  until  long  after  the  death  of  Bede  that  his  Historia 
Ecclesiastica  became  known  to  his  contemporary 
Boniface,  or  Winfrid  (675 — 754),  who  was  born  two  and  Fuida 
years  after  the  birth  of  Bede  and  died  twenty  years 
after  his  death.  A  native  of  Crediton,  he  was  educated  at  Exeter 
and  Nursling.  With  the  sanction  of  Gregory  II  (719)  he  preached 
in  Thuringia  and  Friesland,  converted  the  Saxons  and  Hessians, 
became  a  bishop  in  723  and  archbishop  of  Maintz  in  745,  resigning 
that  dignity  to  return  to  Friesland  in  753  and  to  die  a  martyr’s  death 
in  the  following  year.  His  devoted  follower,  Sturmi  of  Noricum, 
had  already  founded  a  settlement  in  the  woodland  solitudes  of 
Hersfeld,  and,  penetrating  still  further  into  the  depths  of  the  vast 
forest  of  beech-trees,  had  tracked  the  stream  of  the  Fulda  for 
nearly  30  miles  to  the  South,  until  he  reached  a  still  more  lonely 
place,  where  a  plot  of  land  extending  four  miles  every  way  was 
given  to  God  by  the  pious  Carloman  and  a  notable  monastery  (that 
of  Fulda)  built  with  the  approval  of  Boniface  (744) 2.  Boniface  is 
best  known  as  ‘the  apostle  of  Germany’.  In  literature  his  works 
are  of  slight  importance.  They  include  two  text-books  on  metre 
and  on  grammar  (founded  on  Donatus,  Charisius  and  Diomedes)3, 
a  set  of  acrostic  hexameters  on  the  virtues  and  vices,  and  some 
sermons  and  letters  written  in  an  inelegant  type  of  Latin.  Among 
these  last  we  find  letters  from  English  abbesses  written  in  the 
florid  style  of  Aldhelm,  in  which  he  is  addressed,  carissime  prater , 

1  Gesta,  i  62  (Mayor’s  Bede ,  187).  On  Bede,  cp.  Teuffel,  §  500,  3;  and 
Ebert,  i2  634 — 650,  translated  (with  other  authorities)  in  Mayor  and  Lumby’s 
ed.  of  H.  E.  iii,  iv;  also  Ozanam,  Civ.  Chret.  498  b  and  H.  Morley’s  English 
Writers,  ii  140 — 157.  The  Latin  poets  known  to  Aldhelm  and  Bede  are 
enumerated  by  Manitius,  S.  Ber .  d.  Wien.  Akad.  1886,  535 — 634. 

2  Bonifacii  Ep.  75  ;  Pertz  (ii  368),  Vita  Sturmii  (Milman,  Lat.  Christ,  ii 

3°4  0- 

3  Bursian,  i  15,  and  in  Bayer.  Akad.  1873,  457  b  and  Jahrcsb.  i  8. 


454 


BONIFACE  AND  FULDA.  [CHAP.  XXIV. 


while  his  own  letters  are  described  as  dulcissimae' .  One  of  his 
relatives,  a  nun  who  afterwards  presided  over  the  convent  of 
Bischofsheim,  sends  him  with  much  misgiving  a  short  set  of  Latin 
hexameters1 2 3.  He  writes  to  his  friends  in  England  for  books,  and 
asks  a  learned  abbess  to  make  him  a  copy  of  St  Peter’s  Epistles 
‘  in  letters  of  gold ,3.  The  only  trace  of  any  knowledge  of  Greek 
in  his  letters  is  to  be  found  in  a  few  Greek  words  written  in  Latin 
characters4.  His  sense  of  grammatical  accuracy  is  so  deeply 
shocked,  when  he  hears  of  an  ignorant  priest  administering  the 
rite  of  baptism  in  nomine  Patria  et  Filia  et  Spiritu  sancta,  that  he 
almost  doubts  the  validity  of  the  rite5.  At  the  age  of  60  he  was 
still  capable  of  writing  elegant  hexameters  congratulating  the 
Greek  Zacharias  on  his  elevation  to  the  papacy6.  When  he  died 
in  Friesland,  his  body  was  conveyed  to  the  monastery  which  had 
been  founded  under  his  sanction  at  Fulda.  The  monastery 
adopted  the  Benedictine  Rule,  and  soon  rivalled  St  Gallen  as  a 
school  of  learning,  numbering  among  its  inmates  Einhard,  the 
future  biographer  of  Charles  the  Great,  and  Rabanus  Maurus, 
the  earliest  praeceptor  Germaniae.  In  968  it  was  deemed  the 
most  important  in  all  Germany.  It  has  since  been  turned  into 
a  Seminary,  while  the  abbey-church  hard  by  has  become  a 
Cathedral ;  but  the  bones  of  the  founder  still  rest  in  the  ancient 
crypt,  and,  in  the  midst  of  the  many  towers  of  the  town  that  has 
gathered  round  the  monastery,  a  statue  of  bronze  continues  to 
perpetuate  the  memory  of  Boniface7. 

1  Ep.  \\  =  Ep.  3  Migne. 

2  Ep.  21  Migne. 

3  Ep.  32  Jaffe. 

4  Apo  ton  grammaton  agiis  ( =  a  litterarum  sacris),  Ep.  9. 

5  Ep.  58  Jaffe,  lxxxix  929  Migne. 

6  ib.  748. 

7  On  Boniface,  cp.  Ozanam,  Civ.  Chret.  c.  v,  170 — 219,  503-6;  Ebert, 
i2  653-9;  Teuffel,  §  500,  5;  Bursian,  Cl.  Philol.  in  Deutschland ,  i  14!; 
Norden,  Kunstprosa ,  669;  and  on  the  School  of  Fulda,  Specht,  Unterrichts- 
wesen  in  Deutschland ,  1885,  296 — 306. 


CHAPTER  XXV. 


FROM  ALCUIN  (c.  735 — 804)  TO  ALFRED  (849 — 900). 

In  the  present  chapter  we  are  mainly  concerned  with  the 
interest  taken  in  the  study  of  the  Classics  from  the  age  of  Charles 
the  Great  to  that  of  Alfred.  As  a  scholarly  adviser,  the  Welsh 
monk  Asser  was  to  Alfred  what  the  English  deacon  Alcuin  was  to 
Charles  the  Great. 

Among  the  pupils  of  Bede  was  Egbert,  archbishop  of  York, 
and  among  the  pupils  of  Egbert  in  the  cathedral 
school  of  that  city  was  Alcuin  ( c .  735 — 804),  who 
was  probably  born  in  the  year  of  Bede’s  death.  He  owed  less, 
however,  to  the  general  supervision  of  archbishop  Egbert  than  to 
the  direct  teaching  of  his  master  Hilbert,  who  (in  766)  succeeded 
Egbert  as  archbishop.  More  than  once  his  master  went  abroad 
in  search  of  new  books  or  new  studies 1 ;  and,  on  one  of  these 
occasions,  his  pupil  accompanied  him  to  Rome.  In  778  Alcuin 
was  himself  placed  at  the  head  of  the  School  and  Library  of  York. 
We  still  possess  the  Latin  hexameters,  in  which  he  gives  us  an 
enthusiastic  description  of  the  Library  and  a  list  of  the  authors 
which  it  contained2.  Among  prose  authors  he  mentions  Jerome, 
Hilary,  Ambrose,  Augustine,  Athanasius,  Orosius ;  Victorinus  and 
Boethius ;  Gregory  and  Leo ;  Basil  and  Chrysostom ;  Cassiodorus 
and  Fulgentius ;  Aldhelm  and  Bede ;  among  earlier  writers,  in 
prose  or  verse,  Pompeius  (Trogus)  and  Pliny ;  Aristotle  (doubtless 

1  De  Sanctis  Euboricae  urbis,  1455. 

2  De  Pont.  Eccl.  Ebor.  1535 — 1603,  ci  843  Migne,  and  in  Poetae  Lat.  Aevi 
Car.  i  203  f;  well  rendered  in  West’s  Alcuin ,  p.  34. 


456  CHARLES  THE  GREAT  AND  PAULUS  DIACONUS.  [CHAP. 


in  Latin1)  and  Cicero;  Virgil,  Lucan  and  Statius;  among  later 
poets,  Sedulius  and  Juvencus,  and,  among  grammarians,  Donatus 
and  Priscian.  His  enumeration  of  all  these  and  other  authors 
shows  that,  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  eighth  century,  the  Library 
at  York  far  surpassed  any,  even  in  the  twelfth  century,  in  England 
or  France,  whether  at  Christ  Church,  Canterbury,  or  at  St  Victor’s 
in  Paris,  or  at  Bee  in  Normandy2.  Alcuin  himself  had  copied 
text-books  at  York  in  his  youth3,  and  scribes  were  afterwards  sent 
there  to  copy  mss  for  his  monastery  at  Tours. 

Alcuin  paid  a  second  visit  to  Rome  in  780 ;  and,  on  his  return 
in  the  following  year,  met  Charles  the  Great  at  Parma,  and  was 
thus  led  to  take  part  in  the  revival  of  learning  which  marks  that 
monarch’s  reign4.  He  had  already  visited  the  Frankish  court  at 
Aachen  on  his  return  from  Rome,  twelve  years  before,  in  the  year 
of  Charles’  accession  (768).  He  was  now  invited  to  become  the 
head  of  a  school  attached  to  the  court ;  and,  after  obtaining  the 
consent  of  his  king  and  his  archbishop,  was  installed  as  master  of 
the  school  in  782,  and  continued  to  preside  over  it  for  eight  years. 
The  school  is  best  regarded  as  a  migratory  institution  attached  to 
the  court,  whether  at  Aachen  or  elsewhere5.  Charles  was  as 
familiar  with  colloquial  Latin  as  with  his  native  German ;  he 
seems  also  to  have  understood  Greek,  though  he  spoke  it  imper¬ 
fectly6.  His  instruction  in  Latin  and  Greek  appears  to  have  been 
derived  from  an  elderly  grammarian,  Peter  of  Pisa,  while  Greek 
was  taught  at  his  court  (782-6)  by  Paulus  Diaconus  (< c .  725 — 797), 
a  Benedictine  monk,  who  had  learnt  his  Greek  at  Pavia,  and  had 
lived  at  Beneventum  (which  was  closely  connected  with  the 
Greeks),  and  who  wrote  his  celebrated  History  of  the  Lombards  at 
Monte  Cassino,  after  his  final  retirement  from  the  world.  He 

1  Possibly  the  abridgement  of  the  Categories  bearing  the  name  of  Augustine 
(Haureau,  Hist,  de  la  Philosophic  Scolastique,  i  93—7). 

2  Leon  Maitre’s  Ecoles ,  pp.  290,  295;  Mullinger’s  Schools  of  Charles  the 
Great ,  p.  61. 

3  Lp.  38. 

4  So  completely  had  the  tradition  of  learning  been  broken  in  Gaul  that 
a  contemporary  states  that  before  his  reign  ‘nullum  studium  fuerat  liberalium 
artium’  (Monachus  Engolismensis,  ap.  Duchesne,  ii  76).  Cp.  Monach.  Sangall. 
i  1  {Mon.  Carolina ,  p.  631). 

5  Leon  Maitre,  p.  39. 


6  Einhart’s  Vita  Caroli,  c.  25. 


XXV.] 


ALCUIN  AT  TOURS. 


457 


shows  his  knowledge  of  Greek  in  his  History,  in  his  summary  of 
the  abridgement  of  Verrius  Flaccus  by  Pompeius  Festus1,  and  in 
his  revision  of  the  Homilies  which  were  issued  by  Charles  in  782 
with  the  following  memorable  pronouncement: — ‘We  impose 
upon  ourselves  the  task  of  reviving,  with  the  utmost  zeal,  the 
study  of  letters  well-nigh  extinguished  through  the  neglect  of  our 
ancestors.  We  charge  all  our  subjects,  as  far  as  they  may  be  able, 
to  cultivate  the  liberal  arts,  and  we  set  them  the  example’2.  The 
revision  of  all  the  church  books  enjoined  in  789  stimulated  a  high 
degree  of  activity  in  the  scriptoria  of  Frankland3. 

After  a  short  absence  in  England  (790-3),  Alcuin,  who  had 
already  been  appointed  abbot  of  St  Loup  near  Troyes  and  of 
Ferrieres  near  Orleans,  was  made  abbot  of  St  Martin’s  at  Tours, 
which  he  soon  restored  to  a  commanding  position  among  the 
schools  of  the  land.  He  taught  his  monks  to  use  the  pen  instead 
of  the  spade  and  hoe,  telling  them  that  copying  mss  was  better 
than  cultivating  the  vine4.  Under  his  rule  the  clear  and  precise 
hand  known  as  the  Caroline  Minuscule  was  developed  at  Tours5 ; 
and  ‘the  script,  which  was  accepted  as  the  standard  in  the 
imperial  schools,  served  seven  centuries  later  as  a  model  for  the 
first  type-founders  of  Italy  and  France’6.  Alcuin  sent  some  of  his 
monks  to  England  for  books7,  and  continued  in  constant  corre¬ 
spondence  with  scholars  in  the  land  of  his  birth  and  the  land  of 
his  adoption.  He  was  himself  a  scholar  and  a  teacher  to  the  last : 

‘  in  the  morning  of  his  life  ’  (in  the  language  of  one  of  his  letters) 

‘  he  had  sowed  in  Britain ;  and  now,  in  the  evening  of  that  life, 
he  ceased  not  to  sow  in  France’8.  He  died  in  804,  four  years 
after  Charles  had  been  crowned  Emperor  in  Rome. 

1  Nettleship,  i  202;  Teuffel,  §  261,  6. 

2  Pertz,  Leg.  i  44  (Mullinger’s  Schools  of  Charles  the  Great ,  p.  101). 
Cp.  (on  Paulus  Diaconus)  Ebert,  ii  36 — 56  ;  Teuffel,  §  500,  6;  Balzani’s  Early 
Chroniclers  of  Italy,  66 — 90. 

3  Wattenbach,  Schriftwesen  im  MA,  273s;  E.  M.  Thompson,  Palaeo¬ 
graphy,  233. 

4  Fodere  quam  vites  melius  est  scribere  libros  (ad  Musaeum). 

5  Delisle,  Mini,  del' Acad,  des  Inscr.  (1885),  xxxii  29 — 56,  with  5  facsimiles  ; 
Traube,  S.  Ber.  Bayr.  Akad.  1891,  427  f;  E.  M.  Thompson,  l.c.,  233  f. 

6  Putnam,  Books  and  their  Alakers  in  the  Middle  Ages,  i  107  (after  Delisle,  l.c.). 

7  Ep.  38.  8  Ep.  43  (78  Jaffe),  c.  209  Migne. 


458 


alcuin’s  prose  works. 


[chap. 


Among  Alcuin’s  prose  works  a  prominent  place  is  here  due  to 
his  dialogues  on  Grammar,  Rhetoric,  and  Dialectic.  He  is  mainly 
a  grammarian1.  In  his  first  dialogue  On  Grammar,  the  seven 
liberal  arts  are  compared  to  the  seven  pillars  of  the  house  of 
Wisdom",  and  are  described  as  the  seven  steps  by  which  the 
student  ascends  to  the  heights  of  Theology.  The  substance  of  his 
second  dialogue  is  taken  from  earlier  grammarians,  among  whom 
Donatus  and  Priscian  are  mentioned,  while  the  definitions  are 
borrowed  from  Isidore.  The  interlocutors  are  a  well-informed 
English  youth  of  fifteen,  who  answers  the  inquiries  of  an  eager 
Frank  who  is  one  year  younger,  while  the  master  himself  presides 
over  the  disputation.  Grammar  is  here  somewhat  narrowly 
defined  as  the  science  of  written  sounds,  the  guardian  of  correct 
speaking  and  writing.  In  the  dialogues  On  Rhetoric  and  Dialectic 
the  persons  concerned  are  Charles  and  Alcuin,  and  the  principal 
authorities  followed  in  the  former  are  Cicero  De  Inventione  and 
Julius  Victor,  and,  in  the  latter,  Boethius,  Isidore  and  the 
Pseudo-Augustinian  Categories.  The  importance  of  Dialectic  is 
also  urged  in  the  dedication  of  the  treatise  On  the  Trinity ,  while 
the  fragment  On  the  Seve?i  Arts  shows  that  Cassiodorus  was 
studied  in  the  age  of  Alcuin.  The  tract  On  Orthography 
discusses  in  alphabetical  order  a  number  of  Latin  words  which 
were  apt  to  be  wrongly  spelt,  and  is  useful  in  connexion  with  the 
pronunciation  of  Latin  and  the  criticism  of  the  texts  of  the  time. 
The  student  is  here  told  to  distinguish  between  alvus  and  albus , 
vellus  and  bellns ,  acervus  and  acerbus ;  also  between  vel  and  fel , 
quod  and  quot 3.  It  may  be  noticed  with  regret,  that,  in  the  course 
of  this  tract,  the  author  strangely  derives  hippocrita  ( simulator ) 
from  hippo  ‘falsum’  and  chrisis  ‘judicium’4. 

His  Life  of  St  Willibrord ,  the  precursor  of  Boniface,  supplies 
evidence  as  to  the  flourishing  state  of  learning  in  Ireland : 
Willibrord  left  Northumbria,  quia  in  Hibernia  scholasticam  erudi- 
tionem  viguisse  audivit  (c.  4).  The  1657  hexameters  of  his 
patriotic  poem  On  the  Kings ,  Bishops  and  Saints  of  York  contain 
many  reminiscences  of  Virgil  and  Prudentius.  His  Epigra?ns 

2  Prov.  ix  1. 

4  Migne,  ci  910  B. 


1  Cp.  Haureau,  i  126. 
3  Mullinger,  78b 


XXV.] 


ALCUIN  AND  VIRGIL. 


459 


consist  partly  of  inscriptions  for  various  monastic  buildings,  or  for 
the  beginning  or  end  of  mss.  The  epigram  ad  Musaeum  libros 
scribentium  (67)  includes  a  couplet  of  some  interest  in  connexion 
with  Alcuin’s  letter  urging  Charles  to  require  copyists  to  attend  to 
matters  of  punctuation1 : — 

‘  per  cola  distinguant  proprios  et  commata  sensus, 
et  punctos  ponant  ordine  quisque  suo’. 

Of  his  300  Letters 2  (all  written  in  France,  and  five-sixths  of  them 
at  Tours,  during  the  last  eight  years  of  his  life),  the  most  in¬ 
teresting  are  those  addressed  to  his  friends  in  England  or  to 
Charles  the  Great  or  to  his  former  pupil  Arno,  bishop  of  Salzburg. 
They  are  well  written,  and  clear  and  natural  in  expression,  the  best 
in  point  of  style  being  those  addressed  to  the  king3. 

Alcuin’s  Greek  quotations  are  mainly  borrowed  from  Jerome, 
and  his  knowledge  of  the  language  (illustrated  in  a  letter  to 
Angilbert4  where  he  quotes  from  the  lxx  version  of  the  Psalms) 
is  obviously  very  slight5 6.  In  the  School  of  the  Palace  Angilbert 
was  known  as  Homer,  another  as  Macharius  and  Alcuin  himself 
as  Flaccus.  He  is  familiar  with  Horace.  Virgil  he  had  studied 
with  enthusiasm  in  those  early  days  at  York  when,  in  the  language 
of  his  biographer,  he  was  Virgilii  amplius  quam  Psalmoru?n 
amator 9;  but,  in  after-life,  when  he  had  become  celebrated  as  a 
teacher,  he  is  described  as  saying  to  his  students  : — *  The  sacred 
poets  are  sufficient  for  you,  and  there  is  no  reason  why  you  should 
be  corrupted  by  the  luxuriance  of  Virgil’s  language’7 *.  The  library 
at  Berne,  however,  possesses  a  ms  of  Virgil  in  Caroline  minuscules 
(cent,  ix),  which  is  believed  to  be  either  written  in  Alcuin’s  hand 

1  Ep.  112  Jaffe,  101  Migne. 

2  Alcuiniana  (1873);  CP-  Sickel’s  Alcuinstudien  in  Vienna  Acad.  1875, 

461—550. 

3  Separately  edited  by  H.  Schiitze  (1879). 

4  Ep.  27  (252  Jaffe). 

5  Alcuin’s  Greek  scholarship  (like  that  of  many  others)  is  much  exaggerated 
by  Tougard,  Id Hellen isme  dans  les  Jcrivains  du  Moyen-Age  du  vii  au  xii  s. 
(1886),  p.  23. 

6  Alcuini  vita ,  c.  1. 

7  ib.  c.  10.  sufficiunt  divini  poetae  vobis,  nec  egetis  luxuriosa  sermonis 

Virgilii  vos  pollui  facundia;  cp.  Maitland’s  Dark  Ages,  1823,  and  Mullinger,  112. 


460 


ALCUIN’S  INFLUENCE. 


[CHAP. 


or  at  least  transcribed  from  his  own  copy1,  and  which  certainly 
once  belonged  to  his  monastery  at  Tours2;  and  there  is  no 
prejudice  against  the  poet  in  his  own  verses  to  his  brethren  at 
York  (260  f) : — 

‘  Moenibus  Euboricae  habitans  tu  sacra  iuventus, 
fas  idcirco,  reor,  comprendere  plectra  Maronis, 
somnigeras  subito  te  nunc  excire  Camenas, 
carminibusque  sacris  naves  implere  Fresonum’. 

Yet  even  here,  he  seems  to  regard  Virgil  mainly  as  a  model  for 
sacred  verse.  Elsewhere  he  regrets  that  one  of  his  friends  is  less 
familiar  with  the  four  Gospels  than  with  the  twelve  Aeneades  (sic)3. 
But,  notwithstanding  his  ‘timid  mistrust  of  pagan  learning’,  ‘he 
loved  the  temple  of  the  Muses,  and  was  at  once  their  high-priest 
and  their  apostle  in  the  days  when  the  worshippers  at  their  shrine 
were  few’4. 

Alcuin  has  been  described  in  the  Benedictine  History  of  the 
Literature  of  France5  as  ‘the  most  learned  man  of  his  age’,  while 
recent  writers  have  credited  him  with  ‘ability  as  an  administrator’, 
and  with  ‘a  certain  largeness  of  view,  in  spite  of  his  circumscribed 
horizon’.  He  was  conscious  ‘of  the  continuity  of  the  intellectual 
life  of  man’,  and  ‘of  the  perils  that  beset  the  transmission  of 
learning  from  age  to  age’.  ‘In  every  way  that  lay  in  his  power, 
he  endeavoured  to  put  the  fortunes  of  learning  for  the  times  that 
should  succeed  him  in  a  position  of  advantage,  safeguarded  by  an 
abundance  of  truthfully  transcribed  books,  sheltered  within  the 
Church  and  defended  by  the  civil  power’6.  The  tradition  of 
learning  had  descended  from  Benedict  Biscop,  Bede  and  Egbert 
to  Alcuin ;  and  the  influence  of  Alcuin,  which  passed  from  York 
to  Tours,  was  transmitted  through  Rabanus  to  Fulda  and  thence 
to  Auxerre  and  Ferrieres,  to  Old  and  New  Corbie7,  and  Reichenau, 
St  Gallen  and  Rheims,  while  part  of  that  influence  finally  reached 

1  C.  G.  Muller,  Analecta  Bernensia,  iii  23  f  (Comparetti,  Virgilio,  i  122). 

2  Chatelain,  Pal.  des  Cl.  Lat.  pi.  67. 

3  Ep.  34  ( Alcniniana ,  p.  714). 

4  Mullinger,  p.  127. 

5  iv  344- 

6  A.  F.  West,  Alcuin ,  122  f. 

7  P-  473  infra- 


XXV.] 


LORSCH  AND  ST  WANDRILLE’S. 


461 


Paris1.  Alcuin  marks  the  beginning  of  the  period  in  the  history 
of  European  education  which  is  described  as  the  Benedictine 
Age,  the  age  extending  from  the  brief  revival  of  learning  under 
Charles  the  Great  to  the  rise  of  the  University  of  Paris  (c.  1170)2 3. 

Among  the  monasteries  founded  by  Charles  was  that  of  Lorsch, 
E.  of  the  Rhine,  near  Worms  (763);  while  among  those  that 
witnessed  a  revival  of  learning  in  his  time  was  that  founded  near 
Caudebec,  to  the  W.  of  Rouen,  by  St  Wandrille  (d.  668),  a  pupil 
of  Columban.  Part  of  the  building  is  still  in  use,  while  the  rest 
remains  beautiful  even  in  its  ruins.  A  school  was  there  established 
by  the  abbot  Gervold  (d.  806),  and  a  scriptorium  instituted  by  a 
priest  named  Harduin,  who  himself  copied  the  four  Gospels 
Romana  literal,  i.e.  apparently  in  uncial  characters4.  In  a 
fragment  of  its  Chronicle  we  find  many  words  borrowed  from  the 
Greek  such  as  scema,  onomata ,  paralisis ,  tirannidem ,  anaglificus , 
while  curia  is  explained  by  bouleuierioji  and  turricula  by  pyr- 
giscos 5.  A  knowledge  of  Greek  is  also  shown  in  the  Chronicle  of 
Freculphus,  a  pupil  of  Rabanus  Maurus  and  bishop  of  Lisieux 
(d.  85  o)6. 

In  the  age  of  Charles  the  study  of  Greek  was  incidentally 
promoted  by  intercourse  between  the  West  and  the  East,  whether 
in  the  form  of  diplomacy  in  general,  or  in  the  way  of  overtures  for 
the  intermarriage  of  members  of  the  two  imperial  houses.  Thus 
there  were  negociations  for  a  marriage,  first  between  Charles  and 
the  empress  Eirene  (d.  803),  and  next  between  a  daughter  of  the 
former  and  a  son  of  the  latter  (the  ill-fated  Constantine  VI). 
In  this  second  case  the  daughter,  and  the  priests  who  were  to 
accompany  her,  learnt  Greek  in  view  of  a  project  that  ended  in 

1  ib.  1 65.  On  Alcuin’s  life  and  works  (Migne,  c,  ci),  see  Lorenz  (1829, 
E.  T.  1837) ;  Monnier  (1853) ;  Werner  ( 1 88 12) ;  Diimmler’s  Po'etae  Lat ., 
i  160 — 351  (1881);  Jaffe’s  Alcuiniana  (1873);  Ebert,  ii  12 — 36;  Mullinger, 
and  West;  also  H.  Morley’s  English  Writers ,  ii  158 — 172;  and  the  literature 
quoted  in  these  works.  For  the  whole  of  the  period  between  768  and  1180, 
cp.  Leon  Maitre,  Les  Pcoles  Episcopates  et  Monastiques  (1866). 

2  Leon  Maitre,  173;  Rashdall’s  Universities ,  i  26,  293. 

3  Gesta  abb.  Fontanell.  c.  16  in  Pertz,  Mon.  ii  292. 

4  Wattenbach,  Schriftwesen ,  3702. 

5  Migne,  cv  741  B — c. 

6  Migne,  cvi  1128,  1147,  1162  (Tougard,  26). 


462 


THEODULFUS. 


[CHAP. 


nothing1.  Late  in  804  Charles  is  said  to  have  founded  a  school 
at  Osnabruck,  where  Greek  as  well  as  Latin  was  studied,  partly 
for  the  purpose  of  training  envoys  capable  of  speaking  Greek  at 
Constantinople2.  Hatto,  bishop  of  Basel,  gave  a  Greek  name 
(. hodoeporicum )  to  the  narrative  of  his  fruitless  journey  to  Constan¬ 
tinople,  and  Greek  words  occur  in  his  writings.  The  envoys 
subsequently  sent  by  the  emperor  of  the  East  greeted  the  emperor 
of  the  West  as  ‘  imperatorem  kcu  fiacn\.£a.  Near  the  close  of  his 
life,  Charles  is  said  to  have  carefully  compared  the  Latin  text  of 
the  Gospels  with  the  Greek  and  the  Syriac3. 

Among  the  friends  of  Alcuin  and  the  advisers  of  Charles  was 
Theodulfus,  who  practically  succeeded  Alcuin  as 

Theodulfus 

head  of  the  palace  school,  and  in  798  became 
bishop  of  Orleans  and  abbot  of  Fleury.  He  is  memorable  not 
only  as  the  initiator  of  free  education,  but  also  as  an  accomplished 
Latin  poet.  In  one  of  his  poems  he  mentions  his  favourite 
authors ;  they  include  the  Fathers  and  Isidore,  the  ‘  pagan 
philosophers’  with  Prudentius  and  other  Christian  poets,  the 
grammarian  Donatus  and  his  commentator  Pompeius,  together 
with  Virgil  and  Ovid.  In  reference  to  these  last  he  favours  the 
mystic  or  allegorical  interpretation  of  mythology4.  In  another 
poem  he  supplies  us  with  the  earliest  poetic  description  of  the 
seven  liberal  arts5.  Under  Louis  the  Pious  he  was  suspected  of 
disloyalty  and  imprisoned  from  818  to  his  death  in  821.  In  his 
prison  he  composed  the  famous  hymn  beginning  Gloria  laus  et 
honor  tibi '6,  which  continued  to  be  sung  in  France  during  the 
procession  on  Palm  Sunday  for  nine  and  a  half  centuries,  down 
to  the  outbreak  of  the  Revolution7. 

1  Cedrenus,  ii  21  Bonn. 

2  Migne,  xcviii  894  B.  The  genuineness  of  the  ‘capitular’  for  the  founda¬ 
tion  of  Osnabruck  has  been  disputed  by  Rettberg  (Bursian,  Cl.  Philol.  in 
Deutschland, ,  i  28;  cp.  Cramer,  ii  17). 

3  Thegan,  De  gestis  Ludovici,  c.  7;  Gidel,  Nouvelles  Etudes,  157 — 16 1. 

4  Carm.  14,  19,  i  543  Diimmler’s  Poetae  Lat.  aevi  Carol.,  In  quorum 
dictis  quamquam  sint  frivola  multa,  Plurima  sub  falso  tegmine  vera  latent. 

5  Carm.  46,  i  544  Diimmler. 

6  Carm.  69,  i  558  Diimmler;  Moorsom’s  Historical  Co?npanion ,  ‘All  glory, 
laud,  and  honour’. 

7  Ebert,  ii  70 — 84;  K.  Lersch  (Halle,  1880). 


XXV.] 


CLEMENT,  DUNGAL,  DONATUS. 


463 


Among  the  Irish  monks  who  represented  learning  under 
Charles  the  Great  were  Clement  and  Dungai.  The 

.  0  Clement, 

Acts  of  Charles,  written  by  a  monk  of  St  Gallen  Dungai, 

late  in  the  ninth  century,  tells  us  of  ‘two  Scots  Donatus 

from  Ireland’,  who  ‘lighted  with  the  British  merchants  on  the 
coast  of  Gaul’,  and  cried  to  the  crowd,  ‘if  any  man  desireth 
wisdom,  let  him  come  unto  us  and  receive  it,  for  we  have  it  for 
sale’1.  They  were  soon  invited  to  the  court  of  Charles.  One  of 
them,  Clement,  partly  filled  the  place  of  Alcuin  as  head  of  the 
palace  school2.  The  other  ‘was  sent  into  Italy,  to  the  monastery 
of  St  Austin  at  Pavia’.  In  the  mss  the  name  of  the  second 
Irishman  is  either  wrongly  given  as  Albinus  (i.e.  Alcuin)  or  is 
left  blank.  It  may  here  be  suggested  that  the  missing  name  is 
obviously  that  of  Dungai.  That  learned  Irishman  was  asked  by 
Charles  to  explain  the  double  eclipse  of  810,  and  his  letter  in 
reply  proves  his  familiarity  with  Greek  and  Latin  poets,  and  with 
Virgil  in  particular3.  Under  the  emperor’s  grandson,  Lothair 
(823),  Dungai  was  placed  at  the  head  of  the  school  at  Pavia4. 
Another  Irish  monk,  Donatus  ( c .  800 — 876),  who,  in  his  early 
wanderings  in  North  Italy,  was  welcomed  in  829  as  bishop  ot 
Fiesole,  alludes,  in  the  latest  prayer  of  his  life,  to  the  ‘  prophetic  ’ 
lines  in  the  Fourth  Eclogue ,  and  tells  us  in  his  own  epitaph  that 
he  had  ‘  dictated  to  his  pupils  exercises  in  Grammar,  and  schemes 
of  metre,  and  Lives  of  Saints  ’5. 

The  life  of  Charles  the  Great  was  written  in  admirable  Latin 
by  Einhard  ( c .  770 — 840),  a  layman  educated  at 
Fulda,  who,  from  about  795,  did  good  service  at  the 
court  of  Aachen  as  architect  as  well  as  diplomatist.  He  had  an 
excellent  library,  and  was  a  diligent  student  of  the  ancient  Classics. 
After  the  death  of  Charles  in  814  he  withdrew  from  the  court  and 
built  two  churches  in  the  Odenwald,  living  at  the  place  afterwards 
known  as  Seligenstadt  from  830  till  his  death  ten  years  later.  His 


Einhard 


1  Pertz,  Mon.  ii  731;  Mon.  Carolina ,  631;  Ebert,  iii  214! 

2  Mullinger,  121  f. 

3  Migne,  cv  447 — 458  ;  Mon.  Carolina ,  396. 

4  pp.  440,  448.  The  possible  identity  of  Dungai  of  Pavia  with  the  recluse 
of  St  Denis  (810)  is  admitted  by  Traube,  Abhandl.  Bayr.  Akad.  1902,  332  f. 

5  Poetae  Lai.  Aevi  Car.  iii  692  Traube ;  M.  Stokes,  Six  Months  in  the 
Apennines,  206,  247  f. 


464  EINHARD’S  LIFE  OF  CHARLES  THE  GREAT.  [CHAP. 


Life  of  Charles l,  which  was  finished  shortly  after  his  hero’s  death, 
has  been  justly  described  as  a  ‘classic  monument  of  historic 
genius’2,  as  ‘one  of  the  most  precious  bequests  of  the  early 
Middle  Ages’3,  as  the  ‘ripest  fruit  of  that  revival  of  humane  and 
secular  learning,  which  had  been  brought  about  by  Charles 
himself’4.  In  comparison  with  the  ancient  Romans,  its  author 
describes  himself  as  a  homo  barbarus ,  and  all  the  tribes  between 
the  Rhine  and  Weser,  the  Baltic  and  the  Danube,  as  ‘barbarians.’ 
But  it  marks  the  highest  point  attained  in  the  classical  studies  of 
the  Caroline  age.  To  Einhard  Charles  is  a  new  Augustus,  and 
the  culmination  of  his  hero’s  connexion  with  old  Rome  is  his 
coronation  in  Rome  itself  (800).  Einhard’s  model  in  Latin  style 
is  the  Life  of  Augustus  by  Suetonius5,  and  he  also  gives  proof  of  a 
careful  study  of  Caesar  and  Livy.  In  his  preface  he  quotes  the 
Tusculan  Disputations ,  and  he  also  imitates  the  rhetorical  works 
of  Cicero  and  certain  of  his  speeches, — the  Second  Verrine ,  the 
First  Catilinarian ,  and  the  Pro  Milone 6.  It  was  probably  owing 
to  the  architectural  tastes  of  Einhard  that  the  work  of  Vitruvius 
became  first  known  in  Germany  and  was  preserved  for  other  lands 
and  later  ages.  The  oldest  extant  ms,  the  Harleian,  once  belonged 
to  Goderamnus  of  Cologne,  abbot  of  Hildesheim  (1022-30);  but 
it  is  little  later  than  Einhard.  Einhard  writes  to  a  student  at 
Fulda,  asking  him  to  make  inquiries  as  to  the  meaning  of  certain 
technical  terms  in  Vitruvius7.  The  copy  of  that  author  formerly 
preserved  at  Fulda  appears  to  have  been  subsequently  sent  to 
Reichenau8. 

Except  in  the  case  of  Einhard,  the  revival  of  learning  pro¬ 
moted  by  Charles  the  Great,  with  the  aid  of  Alcuin,  was  mainly 
concerned  with  sacred  literature,  and  it  was  of  no  long  duration9. 

1  Jaffe-Wattenbach,  Einharti  Vita  Caroli  Magni,  187 62. 

2  Mullinger,  126. 

3  Hodgkin,  Charles  the  Great ,  222. 

4  Ebert,  ii  94;  cp.  Wattenbach,  Deutschlands  Geschichtsquellen ,  i6  178 — 187. 

5  See  parallel  passages  in  Preface  and  notes  to  cc.  18 — 27  in  Jaffe- 
Wattenbach’s  ed. ;  also  F.  Schmidt  (Bayreuth,  1880),  and  (on  his  other  models) 
Manitius  in  Neues  Archiv  fur  alt.  deutsche  Gesch.  vii  517-68. 

6  Manitius,  l.c .,  565  k  7  Ep.  56  Jaffe. 

8  Vitruvius,  ed.  Miiller-Strubing,  p.  iii  f. 

9  Bartoli,  /  Precursori  del  Rinascimento  (1876),  10 — 16. 


XXV.] 


ERMOLDUS  NIGELLUS,  AND  THEGAN. 


465 


After  the  death  of  Charles  literary  interests  soon  began  to  decline 
under  his  feeble  son,  Louis  the  Pious  (d.  840),  though  Louis 
himself  (like  his  father)  ‘knew  Latin  and  understood  Greek’. 
His  early  conquest  of  Barcelona  (801),  and  his  successes  with  the 
Bretons  (818)  and  the  Danish  king  Harold  (826),  were  sung  in 
6000  elegiac  verses  by  a  student  of  Virgil,  the  monk  of  Aquitaine, 
Ermoldus  Nigellus1.  Thegan,  the  high-born  bishop,  who  wrote 
the  Life  of  Louis ,  declares  that  a  poet  would  need  the  united 
powers  of  Homer,  Virgil  and  Ovid  to  describe  the  guilt  of  the 
low-born  bishops  who  opposed  their  emperor  (833)2.  In  829  the 
prelates  of  Gaul  were  compelled  to  urge  him  to  ‘cause  public 
schools  to  be  established  in  at  least  three  fitting  places  ’  of  his 
realm,  in  accordance  with  the  canon  of  826  enjoining  the  appoint¬ 
ment  of  ‘  masters  and  doctors  to  teach  the  study  of  letters  and  of 
the  liberal  arts’3.  During  his  reign  the  school  of  the  monastery 
at  Tours  lost  its  recent  importance,  while  the  school  of  the  palace 
was  under  the  Irish  monk,  Clement,  who  compiled  a  grammar  for 
the  son  of  Louis,  the  future  emperor  Lothair  (d.  869).  Charles 
the  Bald,  the  son  of  Louis  the  Pious  by  his  second  wife,  the 
accomplished  Judith,  was  king  of  France  from  840  to  876  and 
emperor  of  the  West  for  the  last  year  of  his  life.  At  the 
head  of  his  school  he  placed  the  foremost  philosopher  of  the 
early  Middle  Ages,  John  the  Scot  (to  whom  we  shall  return  in  the 
sequel),  and  he  is  praised  for  inviting  teachers  of  philosophy  not 
only  from  Ireland  but  also  from  Greece4. 

The  ancient  and  important  school  of  Fulda,  which  had  been 
founded  under  the  sanction  of  Boniface5,  was  the  scene  of  the 
learned  labours  of  the  most  proficient  of  the  pupils  of  Alcuin. 
Hraban  or  Rabanus,  born  at  Mainz  in  776,  was 
educated  at  Fulda,  and  (after  801)  at  Tours  under  MaurusUS 
Alcuin,  who  gave  him  the  name  of  Maurus,  the 
favourite  pupil  of  Benedict.  Rabanus  himself  became  a  teacher 
at  Fulda,  where  he  treasured  the  notes  he  had  taken  of 

1  Pertz,  Mon.  ii  464!;  Poetae  Lat.  Aevi  Car.  ii  1 — 93;  Ebert,  ii  170-8. 

2  Vita  Ludov.  44  (Milman,  iii  141). 

3  R.  L.  Poole’s  Medieval  Thought ,  24  f. 

4  Eric,  p.  478  infra. 

5  P-  453  supra. 

S. 


30 


466 


RABANUS  MAURUS. 


[CHAP. 


Alcuin’s  lectures  at  Tours1.  He  continued  to  teach  as  abbot  in 
822,  among  his  pupils  being  Servatus  Lupus  and  Walafrid  Strabo. 
At  Fulda  he  founded  the  Library,  and  part  of  his  teacher  Alcuin’s 
epigram  ad  Musaeum  was  inscribed  over  the  door  of  the  Scrip¬ 
torium2.  In  842  he  retired  to  a  lonely  hill  a  few  miles  from 
Fulda,  and  there  composed  his  encyclopaedic  work  De  Universo. 
He  became  archbishop  of  Mainz  in  847  and  died  in  856. 

Apart  from  extensive  biblical  commentaries,  he  wrote  several 
educational  works.  In  one  of  these  he  was  the  first  to  introduce 
Priscian  into  the  schools  of  Germany.  He  also  wrote  a  short 
treatise  on  alphabets  and  abbreviations ;  and  a  chronological  work 
founded  on  Boethius,  Isidore  and  Bede.  His  treatise  on  clerical 
education  ends  with  a  few  chapters  on  pagan  learning,  which  he 
describes  as  helpful  towards  the  understanding  of  the  Scriptures3. 
He  also  reviews  the  liberal  arts,  especially  Grammar,  which  he 
defines  as  the  ‘science  of  interpreting  the  poets  and  historians ;  and 
the  art  of  correct  writing  and  speaking’4,  thus  recognising  the  literary 
side  of  Grammar  more  strongly  than  Alcuin.  Dialectic5  and  the 
other  arts  are  to  be  carefully  studied  for  ecclesiastical  purposes. 
The  former  is  the  ‘  disciplina  disciplinarum ;  haec  docet  docere, 
haec  docet  discere’8.  Rabanus  recognises  that  the  writings  of  the 
Platonists  in  particular  contain  many  useful  moral  precepts,  and 
much  that  is  true  on  the  worship  of  the  one  God.  A  large  part  of 
this  work  is  compiled  from  Augustine  and  Cassiodorus,  and  from 
Gregory’s  Cura  Pastoralis.  His  vast  encyclopaedia  De  Universo 
is  practically  a  theological  edition  of  Isidore.  His  latest  work, 
De  Anima ,  founded  on  Cassiodorus,  is  strangely  followed  by  a  few 
chapters  on  the  military  discipline  of  the  Romans,  copied  from 
Vegetius  for  the  benefit  of  Lothair  II.  Certain  glosses  on  Aristotle 
and  Porphyry  implying  an  adherence  to  Nominalism  are  accepted 
by  their  discoverer,  Cousin,  as  the  work  of  Rabanus,  though  they 
are  attributed  by  others7  to  one  of  his  pupils.  Rabanus  has  the 

1  Ne  vaga  mens  perdat  cuncta  dedi  foliis;  |  hinc  quoque  nunc  constant 
glossae  parvique  libelli.  Migne,  cxii  1600. 

2  Wattenbach,  Schriftwesen,  364s.  Cp.  Dtimmler,  Ostfrdnk.  Reich ,  ii  652, 
n.  13. 

3  De  Cleric.  Inst,  iii  c.  i6f. 

4  c.  18.  5  c.  20.  6  c.  26. 

7  Prantl  and  Kaulich  (Seth,  in  Enc.  Brit,  xxi  420^). 


XXV.] 


WALAFRID  STRABO. 


4 67 


reputation  of  knowing  Greek,  and  in  his  writings  we  have  passages 
assuming  some  slight  knowledge  of  that  language.  Thus,  in  dis¬ 
cussing  the  derivation  and  meaning  of  syllaba ,  after  quoting 
Priscian,  he  has  recourse  to  Greek : — ‘  nam  syllaba  dicta  est  cbro 
tov  crvWafji.(3dveiv  ra  ypa/x/xaTa  ’  \  He  appears  to  have  no  direct 
knowledge  of  Homer,  although  he  mentions  the  Iliad  and  Odyssey, 
as  well  as  the  Aeneid,  as  examples  of  a  mixed  kind  of  poetry 
( coenoti  vel  micton )1 2.  He  is  said  to  have  held  that  Latin  was 
derived  from  Greek,  and  that  a  knowledge  of  Greek  was  an  aid  to 
the  more  accurate  knowledge  of  Latin3.  At  Fulda  twelve  monks 
were  regularly  employed  as  copyists,  and  down  to  the  seventeenth 
century  there  was  a  large  collection  of  mss,  most  of  which  were 
unfortunately  scattered  during  the  Thirty  Years’  War.  The 
library  of  the  Westphalian  monastery  of  Corvey  (founded  822)  is 
mentioned  in  the  ninth  century,  and  learning  also  flourished  at 
Regensburg  (652)  on  the  Danube,  and  at  Reichenau  (724)  on  an 
island  of  the  Untersee,  W.  of  the  Lake  of  Constance4. 

The  most  important  pupil  of  Rabanus  was  Walafrid  Strabo 
(c.  809 — 849).  Unlike  his  master,  he  had  a  genuine 
gift  for  poetry ;  he  studied  Christian  and  pagan  strabo**^ 
poets,  and  wrote  on  sacred  as  well  as  secular 
themes.  Of  his  sacred  poems  the  most  striking  is  that  on  the 
Visions  of  Wettin,  an  early  precursor  of  Dante’s  Divina  Cojnmedia. 
His  two  great  secular  poems  are  (1)  On  the  statue  of  llieodoric , 
and  (2)  his  Hortulus ,  a  description  of  the  plants  in  the  monastic 
garden  of  Reichenau,  which  was  widely  read  during  the  Middle 
Ages  and  the  Renaissance.  Its  charm  and  freshness  are  not  im¬ 
paired  by  occasional  reminiscences  of  Virgil  and  Columella.  In 

1  Op.  i  29;  Migne,  cxi  617;  from  Isidore,  Etyrn.  i  16,  1. 

2  i  203;  Migne,  cxi  420;  from  Suetonius,  De  Po'etis  (p.  5  Reififerscheid), 
ap.  Diomedem,  lib.  iii  482  Keil.  In  cvii  408  quidam  eloquens  is  his  authority 
for  a  passage  nearly  identical  with  Cic.  Orator ,  §  69 ;  this  quotation  (which  I 
have  not  seen  noticed  elsewhere)  must  have  ultimately  come  from  a  writer  who 
had  a  complete  ms  of  the  Orator.  The  codices  mutili  begin  with  §  91. 

3  Trithemius  (Migne,  cvii  84  b),  ap.  Cramer,  ii  23.  Cp.  Kohler’s  Hrabanus 
Maurus ,  1 3  f. 

4  Ziegelbauer,  Hist.  Litt.  Ord.  S.  Ben.  i  487,  569,  ap.  Heeren,  Cl.  Litt. 
im  MA,  i  162  f.  On  Rabanus,  cp.  Ebert,  ii  120  ;  Mullinger’s  Schools,  138 — 151 ; 
and  West’s  Alcuin,  r24 — 164;  Opera  in  Migne,  cvii — cxii. 


30—2 


468 


ERMENRICH  OF  ELLWANGEN. 


[CHAP. 


his  other  poems  his  principal  model  is  Prudentius.  He  is  also 
the  author  of  the  original  form  of  the  Glossa  Ordinaria  (subse¬ 
quently  revised  by  Gilbert  de  la  Porree  and  Anselm  of  Laon), 
which  occupies  the  top  and  side  margins  of  mss  of  the  Vulgate. 
He  brought  out  a  new  edition  of  the  Life  of  Gallus  and  of 
Einhard’s  Life  of  Charles  the  Great.  His  only  independent  work 
in  prose  was  connected  with  Ecclesiastical  History,  being  written 
at  the  request  of  the  librarian  of  his  monastery.  He  died  in  the 
prime  of  life,  having  been  accidentally  drowned  in  crossing  the 
Loire.  He  was  certainly  a  man  of  singular  literary  versatility ; 
and  his  influence,  as  tutor  to  Charles  the  Bald  and  as  abbot  of 
Reichenau,  was  always  healthy  and  bore  lasting  fruit1. 

A  remarkable  picture  of  the  varied  learning  of  the  time  is 
presented  by  a  letter  written  ( c .  850)  by  a  pupil  of 
ofEUwangen  Walafrid,  Ermenrich  of  Ellwangen3,  to  Grimold, 
abbot  of  Weissenburg  and  St  Gallen. 

After  discussing  the  difference  between  the  mind  and  the  soul,  he  passes 
on  to  points  of  Grammar,  dealing  particularly  with  accent,  quantity  and 
pronunciation,  and  naming  as  authorities,  not  only  Alcuin  and  Bede,  Priscian 
and  Donatus,  but  also  Consentius,  Sextus  Pompeius  and  Servius.  He  next 
introduces  a  specimen  of  the  allegorical  interpretation  of  Scripture,  with  a 
digression  on  the  nature  of  the  soul.  With  the  aid  of  Virgil  and  his  com¬ 
mentators,  he  adds  some  remarks  on  pagan  mythology,  incidentally  expressing 
his  contempt  for  the  pagan  poets,  whose  works  he  condescends  to  regard  as  of 
the  nature  of  manure,  useful  for  fertilising  the  fields  of  sacred  literature.  He 
knows  that  Virgil  has  imitated  Theocritus  in  the  Eclogues ,  Hesiod  in  the 
Georgies  and  Homer  in  the  Aeneid ,  but  his  knowledge  of  these  facts  is  clearly 
due  to  Servius  alone3.  He  refers  in  conclusion  to  the  monastery  of  St  Gallen, 
adding  a  specimen  of  his  proposed  poetic  life  of  the  founder,  with  some  sets  of 
verses  in  praise  of  his  own  preceptor,  and  on  the  sacred  theme  of  the  Trinity. 

In  the  course  of  this  letter  he  quotes  Lucretius  (i  150-6), 
Virgil  and  Servius,  Ovid,  Prudentius,  Juvencus,  Arator,  the  Latin 
Homer,  the  epitaph  on  the  son  of  Cato  the  Censor,  the  Mosel/a 
of  Ausonius,  Priscian’s  translation  of  Dionysius  Periegetes,  and 

t 

1  Migne,  cxiii — cxiv;  poems  in  Po'etae  Lat.  Aevi  Car.  ii  259 — 423  Diimmler; 
Ebert,  ii  145 — 166;  Specht,  310. 

2  Edited  (from  a  MS  at  St  Gallen)  by  Diimmler  (1873);  cp.  Bursian  in 
Jahresb.  i  i  o  f. 

3  p.  219  supra. 


XXV.] 


SERVATUS  LUPUS. 


469 


lastly  Pliny,  Boethius  and  Fulgentius1.  The  letter  also  displays 
some  slight  knowledge  of  Greek  vocabulary  (as  well  as  ignorance 
of  Greek  Accidence  and  Prosody)  by  the  introduction  of  isolated 
words  or  single  lines,  sometimes  in  Greek  and  Latin  combined. 
But,  as  a  whole,  it  is  a  specimen  of  superficial  learning  rather 
than  true  taste.  The  writer’s  erudition  was,  however,  recognised 
by  his  being  made  bishop  of  Passau  in  865,  nine  years  before  his 
death2. 

A  far  more  agreeable  picture  is  presented  to  us  in  the  130 
Letters  of  Servatus  Lupus,  born  of  a  noble  family  in 
the  diocese  of  Sens,  educated  at  Ferrieres  and  at  Lupus&tUS 
Fulda,  and  abbot  of  the  former  from  842  to  his 
death,  little  more  than  twenty  years  later.  At  Fulda  he  had  not 
only  been  educated  for  six  years  under  Rabanus,  the  most  learned 
theologian  of  the  day,  but  had  also  obtained  literary  advice  and 
instruction  from  Einhard,  the  ablest  scholar  of  the  time.  While 
Alcuin,  the  instructor  of  Rabanus,  was  exceedingly  narrow  in  his 
literary  interests,  Lupus,  the  pupil  of  Rabanus,  has  a  far  wider 
range.  In  his  literary  spirit  he  is  a  precursor  of  the  humanists  of 
the  Renaissance.  To  one  of  his  correspondents  he  expresses  his 
regret  that  the  pursuits  of  literature  are  almost  obsolete3;  to 
another,  his  delight  at  their  revival  in  his  own  neighbourhood4. 
In  writing  to  Einhard  he  confesses  that  a  love  of  letters  had 
been  implanted  in  him  almost  from  his  very  boyhood,  and 
contrasts  the  revival  of  letters  in  Einhard’s  own  time,  under 
Charles  the  Great,  with  their  decline  in  the  days  when  ‘men 
scarcely  tolerate  any  who  attempt  to  acquire  knowledge  ’5.  He 
is  himself  an  eager  borrower,  and  a  wary  lender,  of  books.  He 
asks  one  of  his  relations  to  send  a  capable  monk  to  Fulda  and 
borrow  from  the  abbot  a  copy  of  Suetonius  £in  two  moderate-sized 
volumes,  which  he  can  either  bring  himself,  or  send  by  a  trusty 
messenger’6.  He  begs  the  archbishop  of  Tours  to  send  him  a 
copy  of  the  commentary  of  Boethius  on  the  Topica  of  Cicero'. 


1  Gottlieb,  Bibliotheken ,  p.  441. 

a  Ebert,  ii  179 — 184. 

3  34,  nunc  litterarum  studiis  paene  obsoletis. 

4  35 ,  reviviscentem  in  his  nostris  regionibus  sapientiam. 

5  Ep.  1.  6  91.  7  16. 


I 


470 


SERVATUS  LUPUS 


[CHAP 


He  writes  to  the  abbot  of  York  to  ask  for  the  loan  of  the 
Questions  on  the  Old  and  New  Testaments  ascribed  to  St  Jerome 
by  Cassiodorus,  also  those  of  Bede,  the  seventh  and  following 
books  of  St  Jerome  on  Jeremiah,  and  the  twelve  books  of  the 
Institutions  of  Quintilian1.  Not  content  with  borrowing  from 
Fleury  in  his  own  neighbourhood  and  from  other  monasteries  in 
France,  and  from  Fulda  and  York,  he  even  writes  to  Rome. 
Thus  he  applies  to  pope  Benedict  III  (855-8)  for  the  above  books 
of  St  Jerome,  and  for  certain  mss  of  Cicero  de  Oratore ,  and  of 
Quintilian,  which  he  had  seen  in  Rome  (849),  the  latter  being  ‘in 
a  single  volume  of  moderate  size  ’.  He  adds  that  his  monastery 
already  possessed  parts  of  the  last  two  works,  and  concludes  by 
begging  for  the  loan  of  the  commentary  on  Terence  by  Donatus2. 
He  is  himself  so  cautious  about  lending  a  ms  which  is  in  constant 
demand,  that  he  has  almost  resolved  on  despatching  it  to  some 
place  of  security  for  fear  of  losing  it  altogether3.  In  the  same 
letter  he  answers  a  number  of  minor  questions  on  points  of 
spelling  and  prosody  by  appealing  to  the  grammarian  Caper,  and 
by  quoting  thrice  from  Virgil,  twice  from  Martial,  and  once  from 
Prudentius,  Alcuin  and  Theodulfus.  He  lends  the  bishop  of 
Auxerre  St  Jerome’s  commentary  on  the  Prophets  before  he  has 
had  time  to  read  it  himself,  and  (doubtless  in  answer  to  some 
inquiry)  informs  him  that  Caesar  had  not  really  written  a  History 
of  Rome,  but  only  the  Commentaries  on  the  Gallic  War ,  of  which 
the  bishop  had  doubtless  heard,  and  a  copy  of  which  would  be 
sent  as  soon  as  possible,  adding  that  the  continuation  was  the 
work  of  Caesar’s  secretary,  Hirtius4.  With  a  view  to  correcting 
his  own  texts,  he  borrows  extra  copies  of  works  already  in 
his  possession.  He  thanks  a  friend  for  revising  his  copy  of 
Macrobius  and  for  sending  a  ms  of  the  commentary  of  Boethius ; 
he  inquires  about  a  ms  of  Cicero’s  Tusculan  Disputations ,  and, 
in  the.  same  letter,  answers  questions  on  prosody  by  quoting 
Virgil  and  Juvencus  as  well  as  Servius  and  Priscian5.  He  in¬ 
forms  a  monk  of  the  Benedictine  monastery  at  Priim  that  he 
intends  to  compare  his  own  copy  of  Cicero’s  Letters  with  the 
text  which  he  has  just  received,  and  thus  arrive  at  the  truth ; 


1  62. 
4  37- 


2  103. 

5  8. 


XXV.] 


AND  THE  CLASSICS. 


471 


he  also  asks  for  his  friend’s  copy  of  Cicero’s  translation  of 
Aratus,  with  a  view  to  filling  up  some  lacunae  in  his  own1. 
He  declines  to  send  a  ms  to  a  monk  at  Sens,  because  his 
messenger  will  be  exposed  to  the  perils  of  a  journey  on  foot2. 
He  cannot  lend  Hincmar  the  Collectaneum  of  Bede  on  the 
Epistles  of  St  Paul,  because  ‘the  book  is  too  large  to  be  con¬ 
cealed  in  the  vest  or  the  wallet,  and,  even  if  either  were  possible, 
it  might  be  a  prey  to  robbers  tempted  by  the  beauty  of  the  ms’3. 
He  is  prevented  from  sending  Gellius  to  Einhard  because  the 
abbot  has  once  more  kept  it  in  his  own  possession4.  He  is 
interested  in  obtaining,  through  Einhard,  carefully  copied  speci¬ 
mens  of  uncial  characters5;  and  it  may  be  remembered  that  it 
was  in  this  age  that  Charles  the  Bald  caused  a  ms  of  the  Gospels 
to  be  copied  in  letters  of  gold  for  the  abbey  of  St  Denis6,  with 
the  donor’s  portrait  as  frontispiece,  and  that  he  received  a  ms  of 
the  Bible  in  Caroline  minuscules7  from  the  abbot  of  Tours,  where 
that  hand  had  been  formed  under  the  rule  of  Alcuin. 

His  attitude  towards  the  Classics  may  be  partly  illustrated  by 
a  letter  in  which  he  good-humouredly  describes  a  presbyter  of 
Mainz,  named  Probus,  as  charitably  including  Cicero  and  Virgil 
(whose  works  he  is  copying)  in  the  number  of  the  elect8.  His  own 
literary  tastes  are  more  clearly  shown  in  his  first  letter  to  Einhard, 
where,  after  saying  that,  in  his  judgement,  ‘learning  should  be 
sought  for  its  own  sake’9,  he  adds  that  he  had  found  the  authors 
of  the  day  far  removed  from  the  dignity  of  the  Ciceronian  style 
emulated  by  the  foremost  of  the  Latin  Fathers,  until  at  last  he 
lighted  on  Einhard’s  admirably  written  Life  of  Charles  the  Great10. 
A  wide  knowledge  of  Latin  literature  is  displayed  in  his  frequent  re- 

1  69.  2  20.  3  76.  4  5. 

5  5  (cxix  448  C,  Migne),  scriptor  regius  Bertcaudus  dicitur  antiquarum 

litterarum,  duntaxat  earum  quae  maximae  sunt,  et  unciales  a  quibusdam  vocari 

existimantur,  habere  mensuram  descriptam.  Itaque,  si  penes  vos  est,  mittite 
mihi  earn  per  hunc,  quaeso,  pictorem,  cum  redierit,  schedula  tamen  dili- 

gentissime  sigillo  munita. 

6  Hist.  Litt.  de  la  France ,  iv  282  f. 

7  Specimen  in  Lecoy  de  la  Marche,  Les  Manuscrits  (Quantin),  p.  69.  It 
was  written  (c.  845-50)  by  a  monk  of  Marmoutier. 

8  20  ad  finem.  9  Quoted  on  p.  429. 

10  P-  434  A. 


472 


SERVATUS  LUPUS. 


[CHAP. 


ferences  to  Latin  authors.  Among  historians,  we  find  Livy1,  Sallust, 
Caesar,  Suetonius,  Justin  and  Valerius  Maximus2;  in  rhetoric, 
Cicero  and  Quintilian;  among  poets,  Terence,  Virgil,  Horace 
and  Martial;  and,  among  grammarians,  Caper,  Gellius,  Donatus, 
Servius,  Macrobius  and  Priscian.  He  describes  a  knowledge  of 
German  as  ‘most  necessary  at  the  present  day’3;  at  the  same 
time,  he  protests  against  the  rumour  that  he  had  himself  gone  to 
Fulda  to  learn  that  language ;  it  would  not  have  been  ‘  worth  his 
while  to  go  so  far  for  such  a  purpose’;  he  had  really  spent  his 
time  there  in  copying  mss,  ad  oblivionis  remedium  et  eruditionis 
augmentum* .  There  is  hardly  any  sign  that  he  knew  Greek.  He 
consults  Einhard  about  certain  Greek  words  in  Servius5;  and, 
when  he  is  himself  consulted  on  similar  points  by  Gotteschalk,  he 
hints  that  the  niceties  of  the  language  are  best  ascertained  from 
the  Greeks  themselves6.  He  states  that  blasphemus  is  obviously  a 
Greek  word,  because  of  the  collocation  of  p  and  h ,  and  he  proves 
from  Prudentius  that  the  second  syllable  is  long,  but  he  adds  that 
he  is  informed  by  a  Greek  that,  ‘  among  the  Greeks  ’  (who  in  this 
case  clearly  allowed  the  accent  to  supersede  the  quantity),  ‘it  was 
always  pronounced  short  ’, — an  opinion  shared  by  Einhard7.  Even 
in  his  treatise  on  the  tenets  of  the  Latin  Fathers,  written  in  answer 
to  art  inquiry  from  Charles  the  Bald8,  he  cannot  refrain  from 
quoting  Cicero  and  Virgil9. 

The  importance  of  the  age  of  Servatus  Lupus,  in  regard  to  the 
preservation  and  transmission  of  mss,  may  be  inferred  from  the 
large  number  of  mss  of  the  ninth  century  and  the  first  half  of  the 
tenth,  which  are  recorded  as  having  belonged  to  the  monastic 
libraries  of  France'0.  It  was  also  about  this  time  that  classical  mss 

1  34,  illud  quod  sequitur  tangere  nolui  donee  in  Livio  vigilantius  inda- 
garem. 

2  Cp.  Traube  in  S.  Ber.  Bayr.  A  bad.  1891,  p.  402. 

3  70.  4  6.  5  5  ad  fin. 

6  30  ad  fin.  7  20  p.  467  C — D.  8  128. 

9  Migne,  cxix  633.  For  the  Letters  see  Migne  cxix  431 — 6ro,  and  cp. 
Nicholas,  Etude  (1861);  De  la  Rocheterie,  in  Memoires  i  (1865-72)  369 — 466 
of  the  Acad,  de  Saint e  Croix  d'  Orleans ;  Mullinger’s  Schools  of  Charles  the 
Great  (1877)  c.  4;  Sprotte’s  Biographie  (1880);  and  ed.  by  Du  Dezert  (Paris, 
1888);  also  Ebert,  ii  203-9;  Manitius  in  Rhein.  Mus.  (1893)  313 — 320;  and 
Norden’s  Kunstprosa ,  699  f. 

10  Norden,  704  b 


XXV.] 


PASCHASIUS  RADBERTUS. 


473 


first  found  their  way  into  Germany,  the  writers  of  the  golden  age 
being  scantily  represented  by  Virgil,  Lucan,  Livy  and  portions 
of  Cicero,  while  later  authors  were  more  frequent,  especially 
Macrobius,  Martianus  Capella  and  Isidore. 

While  the  monastery  of  Ferrieres,  near  Sens  and  the  Upper 
Seine,  was  the  home  of  Lupus,  that  of  Corbie  on 
the  Somme,  near  Amiens,  is  similarly  associated  R^ertus1US 
with  his  contemporary  Radbertus,  who  also  bears 
the  name  of  Paschasius  (c,  790 — 865).  He  joined  in  founding 
the  New  Corbie  in  Westphalia  (822).  His  familiarity  with  Latin 
literature  is  shown  by  the  passages  which  he  tacitly  borrows  from 
Cicero,  Seneca,  Virgil  and  Horace,  and  there  is  some  slight 
evidence  that  he  was  acquainted  with  Greek1 2. 

In  the  reign  of  Charles  the  Bald  (840 — 877),  whom  Lupus 
describes  as  ‘doctrinae  studiosissimus ’3,  there  is  a  certain  revival 
of  interest  in  literature,  but  it  resembles  the  final  flicker  of  an 
expiring  flame  rather  than  ‘a  light  that  rises  to  the  stars’.  This 
last  is  the  flattering  phrase  used  by  Eric  of  Auxerre  (d.  c.  877)  in 
a  letter  addressed  to  the  king.  He  even  describes  Greece  as 
lamenting  the  loss  of  those  of  her  sons  whom  the  liberality  of  the 
king  has  attracted  to  Gaul,  and  nearly  all  Ireland,  with  the  band 
of  her  philosophers,  as  disdaining  the  perils  of  the  sea  and 
embracing  a  voluntary  exile  in  answer  to  the  summons  of  one 
who  was  a  Solomon  in  wisdom3. 

The  chief  representative  of  Ireland  and  philosophy  at  the 
court  of  Charles  the  Bald  was  Joannes  Scotus,  or 

7  Joannes 

John  the  Scot4  (c.  810-5 — c.  875),  who,  from  about  Scotus 
845,  was  the  head  of  the  palace  school  and  thus  (Ensena) 

took  part  in  a  temporary  revival  of  learning.  In  his  person  the 


1  Migne,  cxx  ;  Tougard,  L' Hellenisme,  p.  30;  Ebert,  ii  230  f.  His  four 
poems  (including  an  ‘  egloga  ’)  are  printed  in  Poetae  Lat.  Aevi  Car.  iii  45 — 53 
Traube. 

2  Ep .  1 19.  3  Migne,  cxxiv  1133. 

4  Known  to  his  contemporaries  as  Joannes  Scotus ,  Scottus,  or  Scotigena ; 
and  called  by  himself,  in  his  translation  of  ‘  Dionysius  ’,  Joannes  Ierugena 
(changed  in  later  mss  into  Erugena  and  Eriugena).  Erigena  appears  later 
still,  and  Joannes  Scotus  Erigena  not  earlier  than  cent,  xvi  (Christlieb,  isf, 
ap.  R.  L.  Poole’s  Medieval  Thought ,  55;  and  Traube  in  Poetae  Lat.  Aevi 

Car.  iii  518). 


474 


JOANNES  SCOTUS. 


[CHAP. 


Greek  Scholarship  of  Ireland  found  a  welcome  in  France  in  the 
days  when  England  was  being  overrun  by  the  Danes.  His 
favourite  manual  was  Martianus  Capella.  He  was  also  familiar 
with  the  Greek  Fathers,  such  as  Basil,  Chrysostom  and  Gregory 
Nazianzen  (whom  he  oddly  identifies  with  his  namesake  of 
Nyssa),  and  he  had  a  special  admiration  for  Origen1.  In  the 
phrase  of  William  of  Malmesbury,  his  mental  vision  was  ‘con¬ 
centrated  on  Greece’2.  While  his  Latin  style  is  recognised  as 
correct  and  even  elegant,  he  is  fully  conscious  of  the  inadequacy 
of  his  Greek  scholarship.  He  is  familiar  with  Plato’s  Timaeus 3, 
and  it  has  been  supposed4  that  he  knew  the  original  text ;  at  any 
rate,  his  Latin  quotations  from  the  Timaeus  are  independent  of 
the  translation  by  Chalcidius.  His  general  familiarity  with  Greek 
is  fully  proved  by  the  fact  that  he  was  chosen  to  execute  a  Latin 
translation  of  ‘  Dionysius  the  Areopagite  ’.  A  copy  of  the  original 
had  been  sent  as  early  as  757  by  Pope  Paul  I  to  Pepin-le-Bref, 
and  a  splendid  ms  of  the  same  had  subsequently  been  presented 
to  Louis  the  Pious  by  the  Byzantine  emperor,  Michael  the 
Stammerer  (827).  The  author  was  regarded  as  the  patron-saint 
of  France,  and  Hilduin,  the  abbot  of  St  Denis,  had  in  vain 
attempted  to  produce  a  satisfactory  version.  Thus  it  fell  to  the 
lot  of  an  Irishman  of  the  West  to  introduce  the  works  of  a  Greek 
mystic  of  the  East  to  the  knowledge  of  a  Franco-Roman  king. 
The  faithful  and  literal  rendering  executed  by  Joannes  Scotus  was 
regarded  as  an  interpretation  which  itself  needed  an  interpreter. 
Such  was  the  opinion  of  the  papal  librarian,  Anastasius,  who  had 
himself  learned  Greek  at  Constantinople,  and  wondered  how  ‘  this 
barbarian  living  on  the  confines  of  the  world,  who  might  have 
been  deemed  to  be  as  ignorant  of  Greek  as  he  was  remote  from 
civilisation,  could  have  proved  capable  of  comprehending  such 

mysteries  and  translating  them  into  another  tongue’5.  The 

« 

1  Cp.  Baur’s  Lehre  von  der  Dreieinigkeit ,  ii  263 — 344  (Poole,  60). 

2  Gesta  Regum  Angl.  ii  §  122,  in  Graecos  acriter  oculos  intendit. 

3  In  De  Div.  Nat.  i  31  he  quotes  in  Latin  30  D  f.  In  iii  27  he  refers  to  the 

planets,  ‘quae  semper  circulos  suos  circa  solem  peragunt,  sicut  Plato  in  Timaeo 
edocet’.  4  Haureau,  i2  152. 

5  Migne,  cxxii  93  c — D.  The  date  of  the  translation  is  858-60.  The 
original  was  found  in  France  and  not  brought  from  Ireland  ;  and  the  same  is 
true  of  his  later  translation  of  Maximus  on  Greg.  Naz. 


XXV.] 


HIS  PRINCIPAL  WORKS. 


475 


influence  of  ‘  Dionysius 5  is  apparent  in  many  parts  of  the  great 
work  of  Joannes  Scotus,  De  Divisione  Naturae ,  and  particularly 
in  the  last  book,  with  its  doctrine  of  the  final  absorption  of  the 
perfected  soul  into  the  Divine  Nature1,  where,  by  a  fusion  of  Neo- 
Platonism  and  Christianity,  he  forms  a  ‘theory  of  the  Eternal 
Word  as  containing  in  Himself  the  exemplars  of  created  things  ’, 
a  theory  implying  the  formula  universalia  ante  rem.  Another 
important  work,  his  Liber  de  Praedestinatione ,  was  written  at  the 
request  of  Hincmar,  archbishop  of  Rheims,  and  a  man  of  some 
pretensions  to  a  knowledge  of  Greek2,  in  criticism  of  the 
Augustinian  doctrine  as  stated  by  Gotteschalk  (840).  In  his 
reply  (851)  he  constantly  resorts  to  the  aid  of  Dialectic.  He  also 
anticipates  the  doctrine  of  the  Schoolmen  by  insisting  that  true 
philosophy  and  true  religion  are  identical  with  one  another3. 
He  describes  the  course  of  his  argument  as  passing  through  the 
four  stages  of  ‘division,  definition,  demonstration  and  analysis’, 
adding  the  Greek  name  of  each4.  When  the  Latin  Fathers  fail 
him,  he  appeals  to  the  Greek,  and,  when  the  Fathers  desert 
him,  he  takes  refuge  in  the  philosophers.  The  mistakes  of  his 
opponents  he  compassionately  describes  as  mainly  due  to  their 
ignorance  of  the  Greek  language.  His  treatise  was  opposed  by 
theologians  at  Lyons  and  Fulda,  and  by  Prudentius,  bishop  of 
Troyes,  who  traces  in  its  pages  ‘the  folly  of  Origen’  and  the 
trickery  of  an  unsanctified  sophistry,  and  meets  his  opponent’s 
‘assumption  of  superiority  on  the  ground  of  his  classical  learning’ 
by  appealing  to  Jerome’s  abjuration  of  Cicero.  Jerome  had 
maintained  that  the  Scriptures  should  be  understood  in  their 
simplicity  instead  of  serving  as  a  battle-ground  of  the  rhetoricians; 
while  Joannes  Scotus  had  dragged  his  readers  back  to  Greek 
sources  for  all  that  he  had  failed  to  find  in  Latin.  Lastly, 
Prudentius  attacks  the  work  of  Martianus  Capella,  which  was 

1  Abstract  in  R.  L.  Poole,  60 — 73. 

2  Migne,  cxxv  538  A — B.  Cp.  Carl  von  Noorden’s  Hinkmar  (1863); 
Schroers  (1884) ;  and  Traube,  in  Po'etae  Lat.  Aevi  Car .  iii  406-20. 

3  De  Div.  Naturae ,  i  1 ;  Haureau,  i2  153  n.  r. 

4  (pddodos)  diaipeTLKT),  dpipTucrj,  airodeucTiicf]  and  ava\vTucri.  Cp.  David  the 
Armenian’s  Prolegomena  to  Porphyry’s  Isagoge :  elol  Si  rtooapes  ai  5ia\eKTU<ai 
pddoSoi"  elol  yap  diaipeTuct),  opiorLKifp  airoSeiKTiKif),  avaXvrud)  (J.  A.  Cramer’s 
Anecd.  Paris,  iv  442) ;  also  Fr.  Cramer,  De  Gr.  Medii  Aevi  Studiis ,  ii  34  n.  156. 


476 


JOANNES  SCOTUS. 


[CHAP. 


deemed  to  have  been  mainly  responsible  for  leading  the  author 
into  this  labyrinth  of  error,  and  tempting  him  to  prefer  the 
teaching  of  Varro,  which  was  supported  by  that  of  Capella, 
although  it  had  been  refuted  by  St  Augustine.  The  close 
attention  paid  to  Capella  by  Joannes  Scotus  is  further  exemplified 
by  the  Commentary  discovered  by  Haureau  among  the  mss  of 
the  ninth  century  which  once  belonged  to  the  great  Benedictine 
monastery  of  Saint-Germain-des-Pres1. 

The  controversy  between  Joannes  Scotus  and  his  opponents 
may  well  be  regarded  as  a  turning-point  in  the  history  of  mediaeval 
scholarship2.  The  mechanical  tradition  handed  down  by  Bede 
and  Alcuin  is  now  superseded  by  a  spirit  of  inquiry  and  discussion, 
and  the  claims  of  reason,  as  contrasted  with  those  of  authority, 
are  eagerly  maintained3. 

It  is  probable  that  Joannes  Scotus  remained  in  Frankland, 
even  after  the  death  of  Charles  the  Bald  (877).  An  English 
tradition  makes  him  end  his  days  at  Malmesbury,  where  he  is 
said  to  have  been  stabbed  to  death  by  the  pens  of  his  pupils4, 
and  where  the  traveller,  Leland5,  afterwards  saw  ‘an  image  set  up 
in  the  abbey  church  ’  in  his  honour. 

The  Latin  authors  quoted  by  him  include  Virgil  and  Horace, 
Pliny  and  Boethius6.  His  knowledge  of  Greek  was  quite  excep¬ 
tional  for  the  age  in  which  he  lived.  His  partiality  for  that 
language  is  proved  by  his  selecting  a  Greek  title  for  his  principal 
work,  7r€pl  cf)vae w?  p, epLcr/xov ,  id  est  De  Divisione  Naturae,  in  the 
course  of  which  he  is  constantly  quoting  ‘Dionysius’  and  Gregory, 
and  frequently  referring  to  the  Categories  of  Aristotle.  “If  anyone 
wishes  to  know  more  about  the  ‘  possible  ’  and  the  ‘  impossible  ’, 
legat  Kepi  epfjLrjveias,  hoc  est,  De  Interpretation  Aristotelem  ” 7.  In 
the  dedicatory  preface  to  his  translation  of  the  ‘  Areopagite  ’,  he 
praises  the  king  for  prompting  him  not  to  rest  satisfied  with  the 

1  Notices  et  Extraits,  xx  (Haureau,  i  1 52).  Cp.  R.  L.  Poole,  76,  n.  25. 

2  Mullinger,  p.  189. 

3  De  Div.  Nat.  i  69  p.  513  B,  ratio  immutabilis  nullius  auctoritatis  adstipu- 
latione  roborari  indiget. 

4  William  of  Malmesbury,  Gesta  Regum  Angl.  ii  §  122,  discussed  in 
R.  L.  Poole’s  Medieval  Thought,  313 — 329,  and  Traube,  /.  c.  iii  522. 

5  Itinerary ,  ii  262.  6  Migne,  cxxii  498. 

7  ib.  597  c. 


XXV.] 


HIS  KNOWLEDGE  OF  GREEK. 


477 


literature  of  the  West,  but  to  have  recourse  to  the  ‘most  pure 
and  copious  waters  of  the  Greeks  ’.  In  approaching  his  task,  he 
modestly  describes  himself  as  a  mere  tiro  in  Greek;  and  although, 
in  a  work  extending  over  160  columns  of  print,  he  succeeds  in 
presenting  a  closely  literal  rendering  of  his  original,  the  general 
truth  of  his  description  of  his  own  attainments,  when  put  to  the 
test  of  original  composition,  is  clear  enough  in  the  few  Greek 
hexameters  which  he  addresses  to  the  king  of  France  and  the 
archbishop  of  Rheims1.  They  are  sufficiently  bad  to  discredit 
bishop  Bale’s  story2  that  their  author  had  studied  Greek  at 
Athens.  Even  his  Latin  elegiacs  he  occasionally  intersperses 
sacro  Graecorum  Hectare ,  i.e.  with  Greek  words  written  in  Greek 
characters.  It  was  probably  in  connexion  with  his  own  study  of 
Greek  that  he  drew  up  a  Latin  abstract  of  the  treatise  of 
Macrobius  on  the  differences  between  the  Greek  and  Latin 
verbs3.  Aristotle  who,  in  his  judgement,  is  ‘the  acutest  of  the 
Greeks  in  the  classification  of  all  created  things  ’,  is  specially 
quoted  in  connexion  with  the  ten  Categories,  which  ‘apply  to 
things  created,  and  not  (as  St  Augustine  has  shown)  to  the 
Creator’4.  Plato,  however,  had  seen  that  all  inquiries  as  to  the 
nature  of  the  existence  of  things  created  had  for  their  aim  the 
knowledge  of  the  Creator ;  he  therefore  follows  Plato.  His 
Platonism  makes  him  a  Realist,  and  his  extreme  Realism  ends  in 
Pantheism.  ‘John  the  Irishman’  has  been  happily  characterised 
by  a  countryman  of  his  own  as  ‘  an  erratic  genius  ’,  ‘  brilliant, 
learned,  heretical’5.  His  principal  work  was  regarded  as  the 
source  of  certain  heresies  in  the  early  part  of  the  thirteenth 
century.  It  was  accordingly  committed  to  the  flames  by  the 
orders  of  Pope  Honorius  III  (1226),  and  the  editio  princeps , 

1  ib.  1237  ;  also  in  Traube,  /.  c.,  iii  518-56,  with  other  Carmina  Scottorum 
Latina  et  Graecanica,  ib.  685 — 701.  The  Versus  Romae  are  there  (p.  554) 
placed  later  than  878,  and  the  allegorical  treatment  of  Ovid’s  Met.,  in  the 
Integiwienta,  not  earlier  than  cent,  xm  (p.  526).  Both  were  once  ascribed  to 
Joannes  Scotus. 

2  R.  L.  Poole,  31 1  f. 

3  Ussher,  Ep.  Hib.  p.  135;  Teuffel,  §  444,  9;  Keil,  Gr.  Lat.  v  595  f; 
p.  225  supra. 

4  De  Div.  Nat.  i  1 4. 

5  G.  T.  Stokes,  Ireland  and  the  Celtic  Church ,  p.  218. 


478 


ERIC  AND  REMI  OF  AUXERRE. 


[CHAP. 


published  by  Thomas  Gale  at  Oxford  in  1681,  was  placed  in  the 
index  of  prohibited  books  a  few  years  after  its  publication1. 

Two  of  the  contemporaries  of  John  the  Scot  may  here  be 
„  .  ,  briefly  mentioned,  both  of  them  natives  of  Auxerre. 

Remi  of  The  elder  of  these,  Eric  (841 — 877  ?),  was  educated 
under  Servatus  Lupus  at  Ferrieres.  Among  the 
fruits  of  his  studies  which  he  sent  with  a  set  of  elegiacs  to  the 
bishop  of  Auxerre,  we  find  a  series  of  extracts  from  Suetonius  and 
Valerius  Maximus,  copied  under  the  direction  of  Lupus.  The 
six  books  of  his  metrical  Life  of  St  Germanus  of  Auxerre  show 
a  familiarity  with  Virgil,  and  some  slight  knowledge  of  Greek2. 
He  is  also  the  author  of  a  number  of  notes  on  the  translation  of 
Aristotle  De  Interpretatione  by  Boethius,  the  Eisagoge  of  Porphyry, 
and  the  Categories  of  Aristotle,  as  ‘translated  from  Greek  into 
Latin  by  St  Augustine  \  This  last,  however,  is  not  really  a 
translation  from  Aristotle,  and  it  must  therefore  be  inferred  that 
in  the  tenth  century  the  text  of  the  Categories  was  still  unknown3. 
Eric’s  distinguished  pupil,  Remi  of  Auxerre,  taught  at  Rheims 
(c.  893),  and  was  the  first  to  open  a  school  in  Paris  (900;  d.  908). 
His  commentaries  on  Donatus4  and  Martianus  Capella5  are  still 
extant.  Greek  words  occur  in  his  treatise  on  Music  and  in  his 
commentary  on  Genesis  and  on  Donatus.  In  the  latter,  which 
remained  in  use  to  the  times  of  the  Renaissance,  his  chief  Latin 
authority  is  Virgil.  He  also  commented  on  the  Carmen  Paschale 
of  Sedulius6. 


1  On  Joannes  Scotus,  see  Opera  ed.  Floss  (Migne,  cxxii)  and  the  literature 
there  quoted;  also  Guizot’s  Civilisation  en  France ,  iii  lefpon  29,  pp.  137 — 178; 
Maurice,  Mediaeval  Philosophy ,  45 — 79;  Haureau,  i  148 — 175;  Ebert,  ii 
257 — 267;  Milman,  Lat.  Christ,  iv  330  f ;  Mullinger’s  Schools  of  Charles  the 
Great ,  c.  5  ;  R.  L.  Poole’s  Medieval  Thought  (1884),  53 — 7$ ;  H.  Morley’s 
English  Writers,  ii  250-9;  and  A.  Gardner  (1900).  Cp.  Traube,  l.c. 

2  Ebert,  ii  285 — 292  ;  Traube,  /.  c.  iii  422.  He  has  also  some  knowledge 
of  Caesar,  the  Odes  and  Epodes  of  Horace,  and  of  Persius  and  Petronius, 
ib.  424;  and  Heiricus  magister  is  quoted  in  scholia  on  Juvenal,  ix  27. 

3  Haureau,  i  188  and  196;  cp.  Traube,  l.  c.,  424. 

4  ed.  W.  Fox  (1902);  cp.  Haase,  De  Medii  Aevi  Stud.  Philol.  26 f  note; 
Bursian,  Cl.  Philol.  in  Deutschland,  i  27  and  note. 

5  Haureau,  i  203-5;  CP*  Ebert,  iii  234  b 

6  Hiimer  in  Vienna  A  had.  April  1880. 


XXV.]  CLASSICS  AT  PAVIA,  MODENA,  ST  GALLEN.  479 


Classics 
at  Pavia, 
Modena  and 
St  Gallen 


The  Irish  monk  Dungal1  (d.  826)  is  not  only  a  student  of 
Cicero  and  Macrobius,  but  he  also  shows  some 
slight  knowledge  of  Greek  by  using  the  word  ixrjvr] 
and  the  phrase  Kara  aVri^pacrtv,  and  by  explaining 
the  term  apologia  ‘secundum  proprietatem  Graeci 
sermonis’2.  Half  a  century  later,  we  find  traces  of  classical 
studies  not  only  in  Dungal’s  school  at  Pavia,  but  also  at  Modena. 
While  the  Franks  on  their  march  to  rescue  Louis  II  at  Beneventum 
(871)  sang  rude  rhymes  regardless  of  inflexions  and  abounding 
in  biblical  citations  only3,  the  citizens  who  guarded  the  walls  of 
Modena  chanted  far  more  elegant  lines  of  accentual  Latin  verse 
recalling  the  ancient  sieges  of  Troy  and  Rome : — 


‘  O  tu,  qui  servas  armis  ista  moenia, 

Noli  dormire,  moneo,  sed  vigila: 

Dam  Hector  vigil  extitit  in  Troia, 

Non  earn  cepit  fraudulenta  Gretia’,  etc. 4 


Towards  the  close  of  the  century  there  is  evidence  of  the  study  of 
the  Classics  at  St  Gallen,  which  possessed  Irish  translations  from 
Hippocrates  and  Galen,  and  the  Greek  Grammar  of  Dositheus5. 
Among  the  mss  added  to  its  library  by  Hartmund  (c.  841 — 883) 
were  a  (Latin)  Josephus,  Justin,  Solinus,  Orosius,  Martianus 
Capella,  Priscian  and  Isidore6;  and  Latin  verse  was  written  (and 
forms  of  deeds  and  letters  drawn  up)  by  the  versatile  abbot 
Salomo  III  (890) 7.  A  learned  monk  of  St  Gallen,  Notker  the 
Stammerer  (c.  830 — 912),  laboriously  copied  out  for  the  episcopal 
chancellor  of  Charles  the  Fat  a  Greek  ms  of  the  Canonical 
Epistles  which  had  been  lent  by  the  bishop  of  Vercelli8.  Notker 
intersperses  Greek  words  in  his  Latin9;  he  ends  a  letter  explaining 
certain  musical  symbols  with  the  words :  Salutajit  te  ellinici  fratres , 


1  p.  463  supra .  2  Migne,  cv  455,  473,  467. 

3  Traube,  l.  c.,  403-5. 

4  Muratori,  Ant.  Ital. ,  diss.  40  (Hallam,  Lit.  i4  26  f);  cp.  Ebert,  iii  174  f ; 
Traube,  0  Roma  nobilis  (1891),  p.  9  ;  and  Poetae  Lat.  Aevi  Car.  iii  702-5. 

5  Bursian,  i  28  f.  6  ib.  i  33  n. 

7  ib.  i  39.  Ebert,  iii  150  f,  154  b  On  his  encyclopaedia  cp.  G.  Meier,  Die 
sieben  freien  Kirns  te,  i  16  b.  On  his  life  cp.  Diimmler,  Mitth.  d.  antiq.  Ges. 
Zurich,  xii  262  ;  for  his  poems,  see  Poetae  Lat.  Medii  Aevi ,  iv  296  f. 

8  Pertz,  Mon.  ii  101 ;  Migne,  cxxxi  989  c. 

9  Migne,  1025  a — B. 


480 


t 


[CHAP. 


ECCLESIASTICAL  USE  OF  GREEK. 

implying  that  some  at  least  of  his  brother-monks  were  students  of 
Greek1.  But  his  desire  for  a  translation  of  Origen  suggests  that 
he  was  unfamiliar  with  that  language.  The  words  of  his  profoundly 
pathetic  anthem,  Media  vita,  in  morte  sumus ,  suggested  by  the 
sudden  death  of  a  workman  engaged  in  building  a  bridge  over 
the  gorge  of  the  Goldach  at  Martinstobel2,  continued  to  be  sung 
at  compline  during  part  of  Lent,  and  have  found  their  way  into 
the  English  Order  for  the  Burial  of  the  Dead.  About  the 
same  time  another  monk,  vaguely  described  as  ‘  Poeta  Saxo  ’,  was 
composing  his  Latin  epic  on  Charles  the  Great,  beginning  with 
four  books  of  hexameters  (partly  founded  on  Einhard)  and  ending 
with  a  book  of  elegiacs  lamenting  the  death  of  Charles  and  the 
invasions  of  the  Normans3.  The  part  of  the  Chronicle  of  Regino, 
abbot  of  Priim,  which  relates  to  the  year  889,  is  written  in  the 
style  of  Justin4.  In  the  same  century  a  Graeco-Latin  Glossary 
was  drawn  up  at  Laon5;  a  similar  work  existed  in  the  library  of 
Corbie,  and  Greek  mss  in  those  of  St  Riquier  and 
of  E^nsiedein »  °f  Rheims6.  In  century  vm  or  ix,  an  unknown 
‘monk  of  Einsiedeln’  visited  Pavia  and  Rome,  made 
a  plan  of  the  latter,  and  returned  with  copies  of  Latin  and  even 
of  Greek  inscriptions7.  There  is  evidence  of  the 
u?e of  Greek81  ecclesiastical  use  of  Greek  (especially  in  the  chanting 
of  the  Creed)  in  the  dioceses  of  Munster,  Rheims 
and  Poitiers,  and  at  the  Cathedral  of  Vienne8;  and,  in  the  rite  for 

1  Ekkehart  minimus,  in  H.  Canisius,  Thesaurus ,  ii  3  p.  198  (ed.  1725). 
On  St  Gallen  in  c.  ix  and  x  cp.  Wetzel  (1877),  and  Specht  (1885),  109,  313-28. 

2  Von  Arx,  St  Gallen ,  i  93-5;  SchefFel’s  Ekkehard,  note  186. 

3  Pertz,  Mon.  i  227!;  Jaffe’s  Carolina ,  542  f;  Ebert,  iii  125  f.  Poetae  Lat . 
Medii  Aevi,  iv  1 — 71  Winterfeld.  He  has  been  identified  with  the  poet  Agius 
(of  Corvey),  author  of  a  fine  elegiac  poem  in  memory  of  Hathumoda,  the  first 
abbess  of  Gandersheim  (d.  874);  Traube,  Poetae  Lat.  Aevi  Car.  iii  368 — 88; 
Hiiffer,  Korveier  Studien  (1898). 

4  Bursian,  i  40. 

5  ed.  E.  Miller  in  Notices  et  Extraits,  xxix  2,  1 — 230;  cp.  P.  Piper,  die 
dlteste  deutsche  Literatur ,  338  f. 

6  Appendix  to  Leon  Maitre,  Ecoles ;  Tougard,  V Hellenisme,  36  f. 

7  Anon.  Einsiedlensis ,  Mommsen  in  Ber.  d.  Sachs.  Ges.  1850,  p.  287  f.  Cp. 
p.  249  supra.  The  author  was  probably  a  monk  of  Reichenau  (Specht,  31 1). 

8  Martene,  De  Antiquis  Ecclesiae  Ritibus ,  i  88,  102,  114,  117  (ed.  1736); 
Tougard,  20. 


XXV.]  HUCBALD.  ABBO  ‘  CERNUUS  ALFRED.  48 1 


Hucbald 


the  consecration  of  churches,  the  bishop  was  required  to  write  in 
the  dust  with  his  staff  the  letters  of  the  Greek  alphabet,  the 
evidence  for  this  custom  extending  over  centuries  vm  to  xv1. 
Greek  was  the  language  used  in  the  fourteenth  century  in  chanting 
the  Gloria  in  excelsis  at  the  midnight  Mass  at  Tours,  and  also, 
from  the  thirteenth  century  to  the  Revolution,  in  the  annual  Mass 
at  St  Denis  on  the  octave  of  the  patron  Saint  of  France2. 

But  Greek  studies,  on  the  whole,  fell  into  decline  during  the 
two  centuries  after  the  death  of  Joannes  Scotus.  They  survived, 
to  some  slight  extent,  among  those  who  had  been  trained  in  his 
school,  such  as  Hucbald  (d.  930),  who  celebrated 
Charles  the  Bald  in  146  hexameters,  in  which 
every  word  begins  with  the  letter  C3,  and  also  sang  of  the  victory 
of  Louis  the  Stammerer  over  the  incursions  of  the  Normans. 
Some  of  Hucbald’s  verses  are  varied  with  Greek  words,  which 
also  occur  in  his  treatises  on  music4.  Louis  himself  gave  the 
name  of  Alpha  to  a  monastery  which  he  had  founded  in 
Burgundy,  and  that  of  Carlopolis  to  Compiegne5.  The  Latin 
poem  on  the  siege  of  Paris  by  the  Normans 
(885 — 7),  written  by  Abbo  ‘Cernuus’,  monk  of 
Saint-Germain-des-Pres  (d.  923)°,  abounds  in  Greek  words;  and 
in  ‘  book  iii  ’  of  his  poem,  all  such  words  are  explained  by 
interlinear  glosses  in  Latin7. 

The  ninth  century  closes  in  England  with  the  name  of  Alfred 
(849 — c.  900).  He  was  taken  to  see  Rome  at  the 
age  of  five,  and  again  at  the  age  of  seven.  Not¬ 
withstanding  the  general  decay  of  learning,  and  the  disquiet 


Abbo 


Alfred 


1  Martene,  ii  679;  cp.  Roger  Bacon’s  Gk.  Gr.  pp.  25,  83,  T95,  and  Opus 
Majus,  i  94  ( =  iii  1 1 7)  Bridges. 

2  Martene,  i  279;  Tougard  21;  cp.  Gardthausen,  Gr.  Pal.  422.  The 
‘Greek  Mass  in  honour  of  St  Denys’  was  printed  in  1656  and  1777  (Egger, 
Hellenisme  en  France,  i  49). 

3  Carmina  clarisonae  calvis  cantate  Camenae  &c;  Migne,  cxxxii  1042  f; 
Ebert,  iii  167 ;  Po'etae  Lat.  Medii  Aevi,  iv  267  f. 

4  Tougard,  40. 

5  Gidel,  189  f. 

6  Pertz,  Mon.  ii  77 6 — 805;  Migne,  cxxxii  722;  Poetae  Lat.  Medii  Aevi,  iv 
72  f. 

7  Tougard,  39;  Ebert,  iii  129G  Freeman,  Historical  Essays,  i  225 — 34. 

s.  31 


482 


ALFRED. 


[CHAP.  XXV. 


caused  by  the  Danish  invasions,  he  led  a  studious  life  in  his 
youth,  and,  after  succeeding  to  the  throne  in  871,  began  a  series 
of  translations  from  Latin  authors  with  the  aid  of  the  Welsh 
monk,  Asser.  In  English  literature  Alfred  is  ‘our  first  translator/ 
In  his  rendering  of  Boethius  (e.  888)  he  does  not  hesitate,  in  the 
interests  of  his  people,  to  add  to  the  original  whenever  he  thinks 
fit.  Thus  in  one  case  he  expands  three  lines  of  Latin  into  nearly 
thirty.  He  also  translated  the  Universal  History  of  Orosius, 
adding  or  omitting,  as  he  deemed  best.  A  third  translation 
(in  which  his  own  name  does  not  appear)  is  that  of  Bede’s 
Ecclesiastical  History ;  and  a  fourth,  that  of  Gregory’s  Cura 
Pastoralis.  It  is  only  in  this  last  that  the  king  states  his  general 
design  as  a  translator.  He  laments  that  there  were  but  few  South 
of  the  Humber,  and  none  South  of  the  Thames,  who  could 
understand  the  Divine  Service,  or  even  explain  a  Latin  epistle 
in  English.  He  had  therefore  thought  it  good  to  translate  into 
English  the  books  that  were  most  necessary  to  be  known.  At  the 
king’s  request,  the  bishop  of  Worcester  produced  an  abridged 
translation  of  Gregory’s  Dialogues.  A  similar  translation  of 
St  Augustine’s  Soliloquies  is  ascribed  to  Alfred  himself.  In  the 
introduction  to  the  latter  he  refers  to  his  previous  works  under 
the  parable  of  the  wood  ‘from  which  he  and  his  friends  had 
brought  the  fairest  trees  and  branches  they  could  bear  away, 
leaving  many  remaining  for  those  who  should  come  after  them’1. 

1  H.  Morley’s  English  Writers ,  ii  266 — 292,  Pauli’s  Life ,  and  the  rest  of 
the  literature  on  p.  294,  with  that  produced  at  the  ‘Millenary  ’  of  1901,  esp. 
Plummer’s  Ford  Lectures. 


CHAPTER  XXVI. 


THE  TENTH  CENTURY. 

The  six  centuries  extending  from  the  beginning  of  the  sixth  to 
the  end  of  the  eleventh  are  proverbially  known  as  the  Dark  Ages; 
and,  of  all  these  centuries,  the  tenth  is  held  in  lowest  esteem.  It 
is  the  age  of  gloom,  the  age  of  iron,  the  age  of  lead1.  England 
was  being  repeatedly  overrun  by  the  Danes,  and  the  monastic 
reforms  of  Dunstan  only  incidentally  promoted  the  interests  of 
learning.  The  Normans  had  definitely  established  themselves  in 
France  (912),  where  the  line  of  Charles  the  Great  came  to  an  end 
in  987,  to  be  succeeded  by  the  House  of  Capet.  Hordes  of 
Hungarians  had  meanwhile  been  ranging  over  the  whole  of 
Germany,  the  South  of  France  and  the  North  of  Italy ;  in  the  last 
year  of  the  ninth  century  they  had  set  on  fire  the  monastic  library 
of  Nonantola,  near  Modena2,  and,  on  their  return  to  the  North, 
they  inflicted  the  same  fate  on  the  monasteries  of  St  Gallen  and 
Fulda3.  In  Germany,  the  line  of  Charles  had  been  followed  in 
91 1  by  that  of  the  Saxon  kings,  the  second  of  whom,  Henry  the 

1  Baronius,  Annales,  900  A.D.,  ‘ saeculum...ferreum...plumbeum...obscu- 
rum ’ ;  ‘  obscurum  ’  is  the  epithet  selected  by  Cave.  Leibnitz,  Introd.  in  Script. 
Rerum  Bransvic.  §  63  (1707),  paradoxically  regards  it  as  (in  Germany 
at  any  rate)  a  ‘golden  age’,  compared  with  cent,  xm  ;  while  Guizot  and 
Hallam  {Lit.  i  44)  agree  in  describing  cent,  vn,  rather  than  cent,  x,  as  the 
nadir  of  the  human  intellect  in  Europe  ;  and  (in  contrast  to  Leibnitz)  Charles, 
Roger  Bacon,  97,  considers  it  generally  agreed  that  cent,  xm  is  the  ‘golden 
age’  of  the  Middle  Ages.  Cp.  Muratori,  Antiq.  iii  831  ;  Mabillon,  Acta  SS., 
s.  v,  praef.  ii ;  Hist.  Litt.  de  la  France ,  vi  i8f,  and  Mosheim’s  Eccl.  Hist. 
i  590  (1863). 

2  Muratori,  Annali ,  ann.  899.  Mabillon  ( Voy.  Lit.  252)  found  only  two 
mss  there. 

3  Milman,  Lat.  Christ,  iii  280. 


31—2 


484  REGINO.  JOHN  OF  VANDIERES.  RATHERIUS.  [CHAP. 


Fowler,  was  the  first  to  check  the  Hungarian  inroads  (933),  which 
were  finally  quelled  by  his  son  Otho  the  Great  (955),  who  was 
crowned  emperor  of  the  West  in  Rome  (962)  and  was  succeeded 
by  Otho  II  and  Otho  III.  When  the  third  Otho  received  the 
imperial  crown  in  Rome  from  the  German  pope,  Gregory  V  (996), 
the  sixty  years  of  the  abasement  of  the  papacy  came  to  an  end. 
Three  years  later,  Gerbert,  the  foremost  scholar  of  the  age,  became 
pope  of  Rome.  The  century  closed  with  the  youthful  emperor’s 
impressive  visit  to  the  vaulted  chamber  where  Charles  the  Great 
still  sat  enthroned  beneath  the  dome  of  Aachen1 ;  and,  within  the 
next  three  years,  the  emperor  and  the  pope  had  both  passed 
away. 

In  this  century  learning  flourished  at  the  ancient  capital  of 
Aachen,  under  the  guidance  of  Bruno,  brother  of  Otho  I  and 
archbishop  of  Cologne  from  935  to  965.  It  also  flourished  further 
to  the  South,  in  the  region  of  the  Meuse  and  Mosel  at  Toul  and 
Verdun,  which  were  occupied  by  colonies  of  monks  from  Greece 
and  Ireland2.  It  was  in  the  same  region  that  an  abbot  of  Priim, 
Regino  Regino,  who  died  at  Trier  in  915,  produced  a 
chronicle  displaying  its  author’s  acquaintance  with 
Justin3,  and  a  treatise  on  harmony  in  which  Greek  terms  are 
correctly  explained4.  John  of  Vandieres  (between 
Metz  and  Toul),  afterwards  abbot  of  Gorze  (near 
Metz),  studied  the  current  Introductions  to  the 
logical  works  of  Aristotle  with  a  view  to  understanding  the  references 
to  the  Categories  in  the  De  Trinitate  of  Augustine5 ; 
and  Ratherius  of  Liege  (d.  974),  thrice  bishop  of 
Verona,  quotes  Greek  and  also  Latin  authors,  among  the  latter 
being  Plautus,  Phaedrus,  and  Verona’s  poet,  Catullus6.  In  his 


John  of 
Vandieres 


Ratherius 


1  Otho  of  Lomello  (discussed  by  Lindner,  and  Hodgkin,  Charles  the 
Great ,  250). 

2  Mabillon,  Annal.  iv  90;  Martene,  Thesaur.  iii  1066 ;  Calmet,  Hist . 
Lorr.  i,  Hist.  Episc .  Tull.  c.  52  ;  Hist.  Litt.  de  la  France,  vi  57  ;  Cramer,  De 
Graecis  Medii  Aevi  Studiis,  ii  37;  Gidel,  Nouvelles  Etudes,  195;  Haddan’s 
Eemains,  28 6. 

3  Bursian,  Cl.  Phil,  in  Deutschland,  i  40. 

4  Mig»e,  cxxxii  491 — 9  (Tougard,  Hellenisme,  38  f) ;  Ebert,  iii  326 — 331. 

5  Mabillon,  Acta  SS.  O.  S.  B.  vii  393. 

6  R.  Ellis,  Catullus ,  p.  viii2. 


XXVI.]  GESTA  BERENGARII.  ODO  OF  CLUNI. 


485 


treatise  De  Contemptu  Canonum  he  introduces  a  quotation  from 
Horace  with  the  words  : — perlepide  Flaccus  cantitat  noster ;  and  he 
declines  to  ordain  any  except  those  who  give  proof  of  proficiency 
in  literature1.  Among  his  lost  works  may  be  noticed  a  Latin 
Grammar,  which  recalls  the  usual  penalty  for  boyish  neglect  of 
grammatical  rules  by  its  quaint  title  of  Sparadorswn* . 

In  the  first  quarter  of  the  century  (916-24)  Verona  was 
apparently  the  home  of  the  unknown  grammarian, 
who  composed  the  epic  poem  called  the  Gesta  or  ^^^agari!8 
Panegyricus  Berengarii ,  in  which  he  borrows  from 
Virgil  and  the  Latin  4 Homer’,  and  Statius  and  Juvenal.  Con¬ 
siderable  knowledge  of  the  grammarians  is  displayed  in  a  con¬ 
temporary  commentary  intended  to  facilitate  the  study  of  this 
poem  in  the  grammar-schools  of  the  day3. 

Early  in  the  same  century,  in  France,  the  monastery  of  Cluni 
was  founded  by  William,  duke  of  Aquitaine  (910),  to  be  ruled  by 
Berno,  its  first  abbot  (d.  927),  and  reformed  by  his 
successor,  Odo  (d.  942) ;  and  these  reforms  infused 
new  life  into  the  schools  connected  with  the  Order  at  Metz  and 
Rheims,  at  Liege  and  Paris4.  Odo,  in  the  early  days  which  he 
had  spent  as  a  youth  of  high  birth  in  the  monastery  of  St  Martin 
at  Tours,  had  taken  delight  in  the  study  of  Virgil,  when  he  was 
warned  in  a  dream  to  abandon  that  perilous  occupation.  In  his 
dream  he  saw  a  beautiful  vase  teeming  with  poisonous  serpents ; 
the  beautiful  vase  (he  felt  assured)  was  the  poet’s  verse,  while  the 
serpents  were  his  pagan  sentiments5.  He  went  to  Paris  and 
attended  the  lectures  on  Logic  and  the  liberal  arts  delivered  by 
Remi  of  Auxerre,  but  retained  little  of  Remi’s  philosophic  teaching. 
He  afterwards  complained  about  ‘the  mere  logicians  who  had 
more  belief  in  Boethius  than  in  the  Bible  ’6.  His  writings  prove, 
however,  that  he  had  studied  Virgil  and  Priscian7,  St  Augustine’s 
Dialectic  and  Martianus  Capella,  besides  showing  some  knowledge 


Odo  of  Cluni 


1  Migne,  cxxxvi  564;  Ozanam,  Documents  Inedits,  14;  cp.  A.  Vogel, 
Ratherius  von  Verona  (1854) ;  Ebert,  iii  373  f,  383. 

2  Gidel,  1 98  f ;  Bursian,  i  42. 

3  Poetae  Lat.  Medii  Aevi,  iv  354  f;  Ugo  Balzani’s  Chroniclers ,  119  f. 

4  Heeren,  i  201.  5  Migne,  cxxxiii  49A. 

6  Pez,  Thesaur.  in  ii  144  (Cramer  ii  41). 

7  Migne,  /.  c.  ‘  immensum  Prisciani  transiit  transnatando  pelagus  ’. 


486 


BRUNO.  GUNZO.  HROSWITHA. 


[CHAP. 


Bruno 


Gunzo 


of  Greek1 ;  while  his  contemporary  and  namesake,  Odo,  archbishop 
of  Canterbury  (d.  958),  was  taught  Greek  as  well  as  Latin2.  Both 
of  these  languages  were  also  known  to  Bruno,  archbishop  of 
Cologne  (d.  965),  a  younger  brother  of  Otho  the  Great3.  Bruno, 
who  had  himself  learnt  Greek  from  certain  eastern 
monks  at  the  imperial  court,  called  an  Irish  bishop 
from  Trier  to  teach  Greek  at  Aachen,  and  also  encouraged  the 
transcription  of  the  works  of  Latin  authors,  which  became  models 
of  style  to  historians  such  as  Widukind  of  Corvey  (d.  1004),  whose 
jRes  Gestae  Saxonicae  gives  proof  of  his  study  of  Sallust4.  Greek 
and  Latin  were  also  known  to  Sergius,  bishop  of  Naples5.  Another 
Italian,  Gunzo  of  Novara  (d.  967),  when  accused  by 
the  monks  of  St  Gallen  of  using  an  accusative 
instead  of  an  ablative,  justified  himself  in  a  long  letter  to  the 
monks  of  Reichenau,  in  the  course  of  which  he  quotes  a  score  of 
Latin  authors,  his  favourite  poets  being  apparently  Persius  and 
Juvenal6.  The  hundred  mss,  which  he  carried  with  him  into 
Germany,  included  the  De  I?iterpretatione  and  the  Topics  of 
Aristotle,  and  the  Timaeus  of  Plato.  He  discussed  the  controversy 
between  the  Platonists  and  the  Aristotelians  as  to  the  nature  of 
‘  universals ’7 ;  and  he  is  credited  with  combining  the  study  of 
Greek  with  an  interest  in  science ;  but,  as  he  uses  Latin  characters 
in  quoting  half  a  line  of  Homer  (which  he  clearly  borrows  from 
Servius)8,  it  is  probable  that  the  above  texts  were  only  Latin 
translations9.  In  this  century  the  catalogue  of  Lorsch  displays  a 
goodly  array  of  Latin  classics. 

In  the  same  century  the  monastery  of  Gandersheim,  founded 
to  the  S.  of  Hanover  in  856,  was  famous  as  the 
retreat  of  the  learned  nun,  Hroswitha10  (pi.  984), 
who  celebrated  in  ‘  Leonine  ’  hexameters  (inspired  by  Virgil, 


Hroswitha 


1  Cp.  Haureau,  Singularity s  Historiques,  1 2 9  f ;  Ebert,  iii  170 — 3. 

2  Cramer,  ii  38  ;  Tougard,  40. 

3  Cramer,  ii  35  ;  Tougard,  42  ;  Bursian,  i  41,  43  f ;  Norden,  Kunstprosa, 
71 1  n  ;  Poole’s  Medieval  Thought,  86 — 8. 

4  Ebert,  iii  428;  Bursian,  i  44  f.  5  Gidel,  196. 

6  Migne,  cxxxvi  1283  (960  A.D.).  7  Migne,  l.  c. 

8  Cramer,  ii  41  f;  Tougard,  42  f;  Ebert,  iii  370  f;  Bursian,  i  42  f. 

9  Bursian,  i  34. 

10  clamor  validus  is  her  own  rendering  of  her  name. 


XXVI.] 


HEDWIG  AND  EKKEHARD  II. 


487 


Prudentius  and  Sedulius)  the  acts  of  Otho  down  to  968.  Further, 
with  a  view  to  providing  the  age  with  a  purer  literature  than  that 
of  Latin  Comedy,  she  composed  six  moral  and  religious  plays,  in 
which  she  imitates  Boethius  as  well  as  Terence.  But,  as  the 
mediaeval  copyists  of  Terence  were  unconscious  that  his  plays 
were  written  in  verse,  the  plays  of  Hroswitha  are  written  in  actual 
prose.  They  survive  in  a  single  ms  at  Munich,  the  discovery  of 
which  was  welcomed  with  enthusiasm  by  the  early  humanists  in 
Germany,  the  first  to  print  them  being  Conrad  Celtes  (1501).  It 
is  true  that  the  scenes  in  these  plays  are  apt  to  be  indecorous,  but 
virtue  always  triumphs  in  the  end,  and  the  close  of  all  the  plays  is 
invariably  beyond  reproach.  Whether  they  were  meant  to  be 
acted  by  the  nuns  or  not,  is  a  matter  of  dispute,  and  does  not 
appear  to  admit  of  decision.  The  writer’s  simplicity  of  character 
is  certainly  extraordinary,  and  there  is  a  charming  candour  in  the 
unaffected  phrases  of  her  preface : — si  enim  alicui  placet  mea 
devotio ,  gaudebo.  Si  autetn  vel  pro  mea  abiectione  vel  pro  vitiosi 
sermonis  msticitate  nulli  placet ,  memet  ipsam  iuvat  quod  feci .  An 
exceptional  number  of  recent  editions  attests  her  enduring  popu¬ 
larity1. 

Another  learned  lady  of  the  tenth  century  is  Hedwig,  daughter 
of  Henry  of  Bavaria,  the  brother  of  Otho  I.  A 
close  parallel  to  the  story  of  the  daughter  of  Charles  Erhard  iTd 
the  Great,  the  princess  who  learned  Greek  in  view 
of  her  proposed  marriage  to  Constantine  VI2,  may  be  found  in 
the  story  of  the  betrothal  of  the  niece  of  Otho  I  to  a  *  Byzantine 
prince  named  Constantine  ’.  Hedwig  learnt  Greek,  but  she  broke 
off  the  match,  and  was  learning  Latin,  when  she  transferred  her 
affections  from  the  Byzantine  prince  to  a  wealthy  countryman  of 
her  own.  Soon  afterwards,  in  the  years  of  her  widowhood  in  the 
Black  Forest,  she  devoted  herself  to  the  study  of  Virgil  under  the 
guidance  of  Ekkehard  II,  a  monk  of  the  neighbouring  monastery 
of  St  Gallen ;  and,  from  the  school  of  that  monastery,  her  tutor 
once  brought  with  him  a  promising  pupil,  who,  on  coming  into 

1  ed.  Magnin  (1843;  1 857) ;  Barack  (1858);  Bendixen  (1862);  Winterfeld 
(1902).  Cp.  Milman,  Lat.  Christ .  ix  181  f ;  R.  Kopke  (1869);  Ebert,  iii 
314! ;  Bursian,  i  45!. 

2  p.  461  supra. 


4  88 


WALTHER  OF  SPEIER. 


[CHAP. 


her  presence,  modestly  expressed  his  longing  to  learn  Greek  in 
the  Latin  line  : — esse  velim  Graecus,  cum  sim  vix,  Domna ,  Latinus. 
Hedwig,  in  her  delight,  kissed  the  blushing  boy,  and  placed  him 
on  her  foot-stool,  where  he  went  on  confusedly  improvising  Latin 
verses,  while  she  taught  him  her  own  Greek  rendering  of  the 
antiphon  Maria  et  Flumina : — 


Thalassi ,  ke  pot  a  mi,  eulogiton  Kyrion. 
Ymnite  pigonton  Kyrion ,  alleluja  h 


She  often  sent  for  him  afterwards  and  listened  to  his  Latin  verses 
and  taught  him  Greek ;  and,  when  he  finally  left  her,  gave  him  a 
copy  of  Horace  and  certain  other  books  which  were  still  preserved 
in  the  library  of  St  Gallen  at  the  time  of  the  writer  of  the 
Chronicle,  Ekkehard  IV  (d.  c.  1060)2.  The  boy  had  in  the 
meantime  risen  to  be  abbot  of  the  monastery  (1001-22),  while 
the  monk  who  read  Virgil  with  Hedwig  became  provost  of  Mainz 
(d.  990).  His  uncle,  Ekkehard  I,  was  the  author  of  the  great 
epic  on  the  exploits  of  Walter  of  Aquitaine,  which  includes  many 
reminiscences  of  Virgil  and  Prudentius3.  Ekkehard  I  died  in 
973,  and  his  poem  was  revised  by  the  fourth  of  that  name. 

Ten  years  after  the  death  of  Ekkehard  I,  Walther,  a  school¬ 
master  of  Speier  (983),  names  (among  the  authorities 
for  Greek  and  Roman  mythology  etc.)  Homer, 
Terence,  Virgil,  Horace,  Lucan,  Persius,  Juvenal, 
Boethius  and  others.  His  chief  model  is  Virgil,  while  he  also 
shows  his  acquaintance  with  Ovid,  Statius,  Sedulius,  and  Martianus 
Capella,  and  with  the  translation  of  Porphyry  by  Boethius4. 

While  Walther  is  a  scholar  of  purely  local  interest,  France, 
Germany  and  Italy  alike  claim  a  part  in  the  career  of  one  of  the 


Walther  of 
Speier 


1  i.e.  ddXaoocu  kol l  irorafioL,  etiXoyeire  t6v  K vpiov,  v/JLveire  irrjyal  tov  Ki 'jpiov, 
dXXrjXotiia. 

2  Ekkehardi  IV  Casus  S.  Galli,  c.  10  (Pertz,  Mon.  ii  122  f,  esp.  125).  Cp. 
Scheffel’s  Ekkehard,  309!.  For  the  death  of  Ekkehard  IV  the  date  c.  1060 
(instead  of  c.  1036)  is  proposed  by  Diimmler  in  Haupt’s  Zeitschrift,  1869,  p.  2. 

3  Grimm  u.  Schmeller,  Lat.  Gedichte,  x — xi  Jahrh.  (1838);  also  Peiper’s 
Ekkehardi  Primi  Waltharius  (1873);  cp.  Ebert,  iii  265 — 76;  and  Grafs 
Roma,  ii  174;  also  Althof’s  Waltharii  Poesis  (1899),  and  Strecker’s  Ekk.  u. 
Vergil  in  Zeitschr.  f.  deutsches  Alt.  1898,  339-65.  Winterfeld’s  ed.  in  prepa¬ 
ration. 

4  Cp.  W.  Harster  (Bursian,  i  52). 


XXVI.] 


GERBERT  (SILVESTER  II). 


489 


most  prominent  personages  of  the  century,  Gerbert  of  Aurillac 
in  the  Auvergne.  Born  about  950,  he  became  a 
pupil  of  Odo  of  Cluni,  and  his  studies  carried  him  (sfive^t^r  11) 
even  as  far  as  Barcelona,  near  the  Arab  frontier  of 
Spain.  He  afterwards  taught  at  Tours,  Fleury,  Sens  and  Rheims ; 
was  successively  abbot  of  Bobbio  and  archbishop  of  Rheims, 
withdrew  from  France  to  the  court  of  the  emperor  in  Germany, 
and  became  archbishop  of  Ravenna,  and  finally  pope  of  Rome 
(as  Silvester  II)  at  the  close  of  the  century  (d.  1003).  In  an  age 
described  by  himself  as  dira  et  miseratida  tempora1 ,  he  was  deemed 
a  prodigy  of  science  and  learning,  the  range  of  his  studies  having 
included  mathematics,  music  and  medicine,  and  having  even  in¬ 
volved  him  in  the  imputation  of  being  addicted  to  magic  arts. 
The  papal  legate,  who  protested  against  his  appointment  as  arch¬ 
bishop  of  Rheims,  passionately  declared  that  the  Vicars  of  St 
Peter  (and  his  disciples)  declined  to  have  as  their  master  a  Plato,  a 
Terence,  or  other  pecudes  pkilosophorum 2.  Gerbert  probably  owed 
all  his  knowledge  of  Plato  to  the  Latin  translation  of  part  of  the 
Timaeus ,  though  he  quotes  Greek  words  in  his  Geometry  and 
elsewhere3.  His  pupil  and  friend,  the  historian  Richer  of  Rheims 
(d.  1010),  describes  him  as  expounding  Porphyry’s  Introduction  in 
the  translation  of  Victorinus  and  with  the  commentary  of  Boethius, 
as  well  as  the  (Latin  version  of  the)  Categories  and  De  Interpreta¬ 
tion  of  Aristotle,  together  with  Boethius  on  the  Topics  of  Cicero4. 
Apparently,  the  old  version  of  the  Categories  by  Boethius,  which 
had  been  lost  for  a  while,  had  now  been  recovered6.  He  also 
asks  a  friend  to  send  him  an  extract  from  Boethius,  De  Interpre¬ 
tation 6.  Among  the  authors  which  he  expounded  at  Rheims 
were  Terence,  Virgil,  Horace,  Lucan,  Persius,  Juvenal  and  Statius. 
He  is  familiar  with  Sallust,  Caesar,  Suetonius,  and  (above  all)  with 
Cicero.  He  urges  one  of  his  friends  to  collect  mss  on  his  behalf 
in  Italy,  and  to  send  him  transcripts  of  Boethius  and  Victorinus, 

1  Ep.  130. 

2  Pertz,  Mon.  iii  687  ;  Milman,  Lat.  Christ,  iii  342. 

3  Tougard,  45. 

4  Migne,  cxxxviii,  Hist,  iii  c.  46  (Cramer,  ii  51;  Gidel,  201);  cp. 
Mullinger’s  Cambridge ,  i  44. 

5  Haureau,  i  213. 

8  Ep.  123. 


490 


GERBERT.  FULBERT.  RICHER. 


[CHAP. 


with  the  Ophthalmicus  of  Demosthenes1;  and  he  advises  another 
to  bring  with  him  on  his  journey  Cicero’s  Speeches  and  the  De 
Republican  probably  meaning  by  the  latter  the  Somnium  Scipionis, 
the  sole  surviving  portion  of  the  Sixth  Book2.  He  also  writes  for 
a  complete  copy  of  Cicero  pro  rege  Deiotaro 3.  It  has  even  been 
surmised  that  the  preservation  of  Cicero’s  Speeches ,  which  he  fre¬ 
quently  quotes,  may  have  been  largely  due  to  Gerbert.  He  is 
eager  to  obtain  mss  of  Caesar,  Pliny,  Suetonius,  Symmachus  and 
the  Achilleis  of  Statius.  He  tells  a  friend  that  he  is  forming  a 
library  with  the  aid  of  mss  from  Germany  and  Belgium,  and  from 
Rome  and  other  parts  of  Italy,  and  asks  for  transcripts  from 
France4.  He  quotes  Terence,  Virgil,  the  Odes  as  well  as  the 
Epistles  of  Horace,  the  Letters  of  Seneca,  and  the  Catili?ia  of 
Sallust5.  Besides  these,  he  mentions  Eugraphius  on  Terence, 
and  Cassiodorus,  but  no  Greek  author  whatsoever.  He  was  once, 
however,  abbot  of  Bobbio,  the  library  of  which  included,  in  the 
tenth  century,  a  Greek  text  of  the  Categories* ,  and  we  have  a  short 
treatise  from  his  pen,  in  which  he  reconciles  an  apparent  contra¬ 
diction  between  the  Categories  and  Porphyry’s  Introduction1 .  A 
knowledge  of  Greek  has  been  sometimes  inferred  from  his  corre¬ 
spondence  with  Otho  III,  but  it  will  be  observed  that  the  latter 
(who  inherited  his  Greek  from  his  Byzantine  mother)  only  asks 
Gerbert  to  recommend  him  a  manual  of  arithmetic8.  Among 
Gerbert’s  pupils  was  Fulbert,  who  included  medicine 
in  the  wide  range  of  his  studies,  and  became  bishop 
of  Chartres  and  founder  of  its  famous  school  (990,  d.  1029).  We 
shall  find  pupils  of  Fulbert  prominent  as  teachers  in  many  parts 
of  France  in  the  following  century9.  Another  of 
Gerbert’s  pupils,  Richer  (who  has  been  already  men¬ 
tioned),  was  also  a  student  at  Chartres,  which,  at  the  end  of  this 


Fulbert 


Richer 


1  Ep.  130.  Demosthenes  Philalethes  (who  lived  under  Nero)  was  an 
Alexandrian  physician  of  the  school  of  Herophilus. 

2  Ep.  86  ;  Norden,  706  n.  3  Ep.  9. 

4  Ep.  44.  5  Ep.  123. 

6  Haureau,  i  217  n.  7  ib.  213!. 

8  *  Deposcimus  ut  Graecorum  vivax  ingenium  suscitetis,  et  nos  arithmeticae 
librum  edoceatis  ’  (with  Gerbert’s  reply,  Ep.  187). 

9  Opera  in  Migne,  cxli ;  Leon  Maltre,  Ecoles ,  102  f ;  Clerval,  Ecoles  de 
Chartres  (1895),  31 — 91;  p.  497  infra. 


XXVI.] 


LUITPRAND. 


491 


century,  had  a  flourishing  school  of  medicine,  and,  under  Fulbert 
and  his  successors,  became  an  important  school  of  learning. 
Among  the  authors  there  studied  by  Richer  (in  and  after  991) 
were  Hippocrates,  Galen  and  Soranus,  obviously  in  Latin  trans¬ 
lations  and  abridgements  of  the  Greek  text1. 

The  most  original  hellenist  of  this  age  is  doubtless  Luitprand 
or  Liudprand  (c.  920-972),  bishop  of  Cremona. 

A  Lombard  by  birth,  he  repeatedly  represented  LuitPrand 
Berengar  II  and  Otho  I  as  envoy  at  Constantinople,  where  he 
acquired  a  remarkably  varied  but  far  from  accurate  knowledge  of 
Greek,  and  where  he  apparently  died  in  972.  His  reports  on  his 
missions  of  9502 3  and  968s  supply  us  with  a  vivid  description  of 
the  many  differences  between  Italy  and  the  new  Rome  in  manners 
and  opinions4 *.  They  abound  in  Greek  words,  phrases  and  idioms, 
and  snatches  of  odd  stories,  which  attain  a  new  interest  owing  to 
the  fact  that  the  author  always  takes  pains  to  set  down  the  Latin 
pronunciation  of  the  Greek,  e.g.  aOeoc  kol  ao-efieis,  athei  ke  asevish. 
In  the  ms  all  the  Greek  words  are  inserted  by  the  author  himself6. 
He  quotes  from  the  Iliad  and  from  Lucian’s  Somniu?n,  and  is 
familiar  with  Plato’s  celebrated  saying,  am a  eXoplvov,  0eos  ami¬ 
nos7.  He  also  cites  Terence,  Plautus,  Virgil,  Horace  and  Juvenal, 
and  even  knows  when  they  wrote8.  The  embassies  of  Luitprand 
and  others  were  concerned  with  certain  proposals  for  a  marriage 
between  Otho  II  and  Theophano,  daughter  of  Romanus  II.  They 
were  ultimately  successful,  and  Theophano’s  knowledge  of  Greek 


1  Cramer,  ii  50 — 5  ;  Gidel,  202.  On  Gerbert,  see  Opera  in  Migne,  cxxxix, 
and  cp.  Muratori,  Antiq.  iii  872 — 4;  Maitland’s  Dark  Ages,  55  n;  Ebert,  iii 
384 — 92  ;  Werner,  Gerbert  von  Aurillac  (1878) ;  Hock,  Hist,  du  Pape  Sylvestre 
II  (1837);  Poole’s  Medieval  Thought ,  88  f;  Norden,  705 — 10;  Epp.  ed. 
J.  Havet  (Paris,  1889).  On  Richer,  cp.  Ebert,  iii  434  f. 

2  Antapodosis,  vi  5 — 10. 

3  Relatio,  pp.  136 — 166  of  Liudprandi  Opera ,  ed.  Dummler,  18772. 

4  Finlay’s  Hist,  of  Greece,  ii  329. 

6  Antap.  ii  3. 

6  Pertz,  Mon.  iii  270. 

7  Rep.  617  E. 

8  On  Luitprand,  cp.  Migne,  cxxxvi ;  Cramer,  ii  47  f ;  Gidel,  204 — 25; 
Ebert,  iii  414 — 27  ;  and  Preface  to  Dummler’s  ed.;  also  Balzani’s  Chroniclers , 
123 — 142. 


492 


ABBO  OF  FLEURY. 


[CHAP. 


Abbo  of 
Fleury 


descended  to  her  son,  Otho  III,  whose  father  owed  his  life  to  the 
remarkable  skill  with  which  he  personated  the  speech  and  action 
of  a  Greek  soldier,  when  he  was  defeated  and  captured  in  Calabria 
in  982.  Otho  III  was  educated  under  Bernward,  who  became 
bishop  of  Hildesheim  in  993,  and  lived  to  see  its  large  library  of 
sacred  and  philosophical  literature  fall  a  prey  to  the  flames  in 
1013  \  Other  German  monasteries,  at  Corvey  and  Herford, 
suffered  a  similar  fate  at  the  hands  of  the  Hungarians2. 

Meanwhile,  in  England,  in  the  second  half  of  the  tenth 
century,  Oswald,  archbishop  of  York  (d.  992),  who 
had  himself  been  educated  at  Fleury  on  the  Loire, 
invited  Abbo  of  Fleury3  (d.  1004)  to  become  the 
instructor  of  the  monks  of  the  abbey  which  the  archbishop  had 
caused  to  be  founded  in  969  at  Ramsey  near  Huntingdon. 
Besides  composing,  with  the  aid  of  Dunstan,  a  Life  of  St 
Edmund,  king  of  the  East  Angles,  Abbo  wrote  for  his  pupils  at 
Ramsey  a  scholarly  work  known  as  the  Quaestiones  Gramrnaticales . 
He  here  deals  with  their  difficulties  in  matters  of  prosody  and 
pronunciation,  showing  in  his  treatment  of  the  same  an  accurate 
knowledge  of  Virgil  and  Horace,  and  even  an  interest  in  textual 
criticism4.  In  the  same  age,  the  early  Lives  of  Dunstati  (d.  988), 
and  the  Letters  bearing  on  his  times,  are  (like  other  writings  of 
the  same  period  across  the  Channel)  not  unfrequently  interspersed 
with  Greek  words.  These  may  have  been  derived  from  Greek 


1  Ann.  Hild.  in  Pertz,  Mon.  iii  94,  ‘sed  hoc  ah!  ah !  nobis  restat  lugendum, 
quia  in  eodetn  incendio...inexplicabilis  et  inrecuperabilis  copia  periit librorum  ’. 

2  Both  of  these  were  restored  by  bp  Rotho  ( c .  1043),  Vita  Meinwerci ,  c.  49 
§150  (Mon.,  Scr.  xi  40). 

3  The  Life  by  the  monk  Aimoin,  in  Migne,  cxxxix  390,  states  that  he 
studied  grammar,  arithmetic  and  dialectic  at  Fleury  (near  Orleans),  astronomy 
at  Paris  and  Rheims,  and  music  on  his  return  to  Orleans,  besides  attending  to 
geometry,  and  to  rhetoric  (in  the  text-book  of  Victorinus).  Cp.  Hist .  Litt.  vii 
and  Cuissard-Gaucheron  in  Mem.  de  la  Soc.  archeol....de  V Orleanais,  xiv  (1875), 
579—7I5- 

4  ed.  Mai,  Cl.  And.  Vat.  v  (1833)329—49,  esp.  334,  346  f;  Migne,  cxxxix 
375  f;  Leon  Maitre,  Ecoles,  76  f ;  Ebert,  iii  392—9.  Cp.  Haase,  De  Medii 
Aevi  Stud.  Philol.  27.  The  600  mss  of  R.amsey  Abbey  (at  a  later  date) 
included  Terence,  Virgil,  Ovid,  Lucan,  Martial  and  three  copies  of  Horace; 
also  the  ‘  Sompnum  Cypionis’  (Macray’s  ed.  of  Chronicon,  p.  xliii,  in  Rolls 
Series);  while  the  Graeco-Latin  Psalter  of  prior  Gregory  (f.  1290)  has  been 
found  among  the  MSS  at  Corpus  (M.  R.  James,  Parker  MSS,  p.  10). 


XXVI.]  ZELFRIC  OF  EYNSHAM.  THE  YEAR  IOOO.  493 


^lfric 


hymns  or  versicles,  or  from  Greek  glossaries1.  In  the  same  half- 
century,  zElfric  (e.  955 — c.  1030),  the  abbot  of 
Eynsham  in  Oxfordshire,  who  must  be  distinguished 
from  both  of  his  eminent  namesakes,  the  archbishops  of  Canter¬ 
bury  (d.  1006)  and  York  (d.  1051),  was  the  chief  helper  of  bishop 
Ethelwold  (d.  984)  in  making  Winchester  famous  as  a  place  of 
education.  It  was  there  that  he  began,  and  it  was  at  Eynsham 
that  he  continued  and  completed,  the  preparation  of  those  school¬ 
books  which  did  so  much  for  the  early  study  of  the  Latin  language 
in  England.  They  included  a  Latin  Grammar 2,  with  extracts 
translated  from  Priscian,  followed  by  a  Glossary  of  some  3000 
words  in  Latin  and  English,  arranged  (more  or  less)  in  order  of 
subjects.  This  Glossary  is  the  oldest  Latin-English  Dictionary  in 
existence3.  The  third  of  these  educational  works  was  the  Col¬ 
loquium ,  in  which  Latin,  being  still  a  living  language,  is  taught  in  a 
conversational  manner;  the  Latin  words  of  the  dialogue  are  explained 
by  an  interlinear  translation ;  the  pupil  is  made  to  answer  questions 
as  to  his  own  occupations  and  those  of  his  companions ;  and  the 
use  of  the  rod  is  not  forgotten4.  ^Elfric  is  still  better  known  as 
the  author  of  three  courses  of  Homilies  (990-6)  partly  translated 
from  Augustine,  Jerome,  Gregory  and  Bede,  the  Saxon  preface  of 
which  includes  an  impressive  reference  to  the  expected  end  of  the 
world5.  The  same  topic  was  the  theme  of  a  discourse  described 
in  990  as  having  been  heard  at  Paris  (long  before)  by  Abbo,  who 
became  abbot  of  Fleury  after  his  return  from  England. 

The  approach  of  the  year  1000  is  said  to  have  filled  Christian 
Europe  with  an  awestruck  apprehension  that  the 
end  of  all  things  was  at  hand.  It  is  sometimes 
supposed  that  the  ensuing  panic  led  to  a  general 
pause  in  the  pursuits  of  actual  life,  and  that  even  the  tranquil 


The  year 
1000 


1  See  end  of  Pref.  and  Index,  ed.  Stubbs  in  Rolls  Series. 

2  Facsimile  from  Cambridge  Univ.  ms,  Hh.  1,  ro,  on  p.  495  infra. 

3  Printed  at  Oxford  (1659);  ed.  Zupitza  (1880) ;  both  include  the  Grammar. 

4  M.  ‘Vultis  flagellari  in  discendo?’  D.  ‘  Carius  est  nobis  flagellari  pro 
doctrina  quam  nescire’.  Ed.  Thorpe,  Analecta  Anglo-Saxonica  (1834)  101  f; 
and  Wright  and  Wiilker’s  Vocabularies  (1884)  i3  79  f. 

5  On  AUlfric,  cp.  esp.  Dietrich  in  Zeitsclir.  f.  hist.  Theol.  1855 — 6;  Ebert, 
iii  509 — 1 6;  J.  E.  B.  Mayor  in  Journ.  of  Cl.  and  S.  Philol.  iv  2 — 5;  and 
Skeat,  Introd.  to  ALlfrics  Lives  of  Saints,  i  (1881). 


494 


THE  YEAR  IOOO. 


[CHAP.  XXVI. 

\ 

routine  of  the  cloister  was  paralysed  by  an  imminent  expectation 
of  the  day  of  doom.  It  is  further  said  that,  at  this  crisis,  the  fear 
of  the  future  stimulated  the  generosity  of  many  benefactors  of  the 
Church ;  but,  if  so,  it  must  (no  less  inevitably)  have  arrested  the 
efforts  of  the  student  in  the  monastic  school  and  the  copyist  in 
the  scriptorium .  At  such  a  time  the  latter  might  well  ask  himself 
what  avail  was  there  in  continuing  to  transcribe  the  classic  page, 
if  the  original  and  the  copy  were  so  soon  to  perish  in  the  world¬ 
wide  conflagration  of  a  Dies  Irae , 

‘  When,  shriveling  like  a  parched  scroll, 

The  flaming  heavens  together  roll 

But,  when  the  fatal  hour  was  past,  we  are  told  that  churches  and 
monasteries,  which  had  been  falling  into  decay,  were  rebuilt;  a 
great  architectural  movement  was  begun ;  and,  in  the  monastic 
schools,  letters  and  arts  were  awakened  to  a  new  life1.  It  would 
doubtless  be  an  exaggeration  to  assume  that  this  new  life  was 
suddenly  aroused  by  no  other  cause  than  the  passing  away  of  a 
temporary  terror2.  But,  in  any  case,  the  millenary  year  marks  the 
transition  from  one  of  the  darkest  centuries  of  the  Middle  Ages  to 
one  that  was  in  the  main  a  period  of  progress  culminating  in  the 
intellectual  revival  of  the  twelfth  century. 

1  Leon  Maitre,  Fcoles,  96,  and  Olleris,  Vie  de  Gilbert ,  21  (quoted  in 
Mullinger’s  Cambridge,  i  45  f) ;  also  Milman,  Lat.  Christ,  iii  329,  and  Bartoli, 
Precursori  del  Rinascimento,  i8f.  The  approach  of  the  end  of  the  world  had 
been  announced  in  909,  and  at  least  eight  deeds  of  gift  between  944  and  1048 
begin  with  the  formula,  appropinquante  mundi  termino  (De  Vic  et  Vaisette, 
Hist,  de  Languedoc,  1733,  ii,  Preuves  pp.  86 — 215);  but  a  similar  phrase  is  to 
be  found  in  the  Formulae  collected  in  660  by  an  aged  monk  of  Paris  named 
Marculf  (see  quarto  series  of  Mon.  Ger?n.  Hist.,  Legum  Sectio  v,  1886,  p.  74). 
Cp.  Rodulfus  Glaber,  Hist,  iv,  Praef.  and  cc.  4 — 5. 

2  Eicken,  in  Forschungen  zur  Deutschen  Gesch.,  1883;  Jules  Roy,  H An 
Mille ,  1885;  Orsi,  in  Rivista  Storica  Italiana,  1887,  1 — 56;  also  G.  L.  Burr 
in  Amer.  Hist.  Rev.  vi  no.  3  (April  1901);  and  Rashdall’s  Universities,  i  31. 


tnanapuim.  loquitur.  mm  peal  [|?|i^.mawatia|)n  ftloif. 
tmntp  ptalap  {unu.tneo  mancrpio  {alrico  JomafI  minimi 
pealr  icnrnlrpie  lrup  mann  niauaput^ecufo.  imtinC'  peal 
ic  beloM^cr.  ©men  tnancipuim  fere  bene.  t&Li  Jnt  min  peal 

jap  pel-  Xrnco  manciple  mulra  bona  dcccpi . ppam nuou  pCalr 
teunsep.  peng  pda  g>sa.  Fcptr  mca  manciple  dnrncrrainr 
ptalap  cpiab.  tnaxp  manciple^/  feqtrefe  nnnjia  {reap  manna 
arepap.  meifuiancipnf  duitdo  Jaidnof  mtnu  manna 
ic  <>ale  penegap.  met  mancipja  <lnguo.  tmtie  ^copon  menn 
ic  f’pragr-  ®mca  moncrpia  eftuce  fiJeUf.  etJa  xg  mme 
pan  beos  ^prptsope^  ^Tnortnancipitradiunir  fum.ppam 
tnitium  [jtDpum  m  annum  lctom  ^pulcmnos.  Sepopma. 
lias.  eqp.  ic  -  niacab  bip  roemgpoJsr  gtcL  nof.  pe.  ~|  0J2. 

Inp  ^ninmim.  nri.  cumaS  ipa.  din  nan  u  a.  ritt  “jtmrf 
nr.  ff.  tme  Ipo^/op.tirrn  frcnr^upnc'  bnojKip. onr  fr- fflbt 

l?u  uper  bpo  J>ojt .  dnn>  {rr .  ppam  upeTbptnep.  Brpl n  on 
frf-  upe  irbjiopjut .  nro^r  Jrm  obedimna.  upd^rrlpaSpa 


-,#ba.  -i.  .  r^rfr.  . 

nroi  pFf  amo.  upff  rebp sppa  ic  tupe.  anrif  prib:  tpomnpa 
rrbpo{nm-  $enenf  {eminim .  tint  feror.  upr  (pn  peps  nmr 
(oroni.  “[{pa  pspb  fpapt  op.  sedinoson.  turn  anaUa^, 

jjenenf  tienm.  tirum  arnlilium.upe  pos-tin  amfibt- 
upep  pastp.  “j{pa  popb  opr  nemn  gpnenf!  Jnccfccbaee 
nttrf.  &choc  nra*  tc. upep  Uuisrp  tmmn  cSSs  dlep  bpat? 
ntttnf.j{pa  pepk  crpn.  [urpe^j jpisftut  sedmnti^.  £all 
{pa  life  <$cbaec  urot’^cboc  tmcrr.eoppef lansep 

mann.  lias  ijta-Jm*  “jkip^HitTOttf.  ba&nu- 


■V 

From  Cambridge  University  ms  (Cent,  xi)  of  /Elfric’s  Latin  Grammar, 
folio  33  (  =  p.  18  Zupitza) ;  see  p.  493  supra. 


Conspectus  of  History  of  Scholarship,  &c., 
in  the  West,  1000 — 1200  A.D. 


Italy 

Spain 

France 

Germany 

British  Isles 

1000 

1005  b.  Lanfranc 

1004  d.  Abbo  of  Fleury 

1004  d.  Widukind 

of  Corvey 

1010  d.  Richer  of  Rheims 

1017  f.  Bamberg 

1029  d.  Fulbert  of  Char- 

1022  d.  NotkerLabeo 

c.  1030  d.  FElfric  of 

1033  b.  Anselm 

tres 

1022  d.  Bernward  of 

Eynsham  ; 

1034  £  Bee 

Hildesheim 

1045-66  Lanfranc  prior 

1036  d.  Meinwerk  of 

c.  1050  Ji.  Salerno 

of  Bee 

Paderborn 

1053  Papias 

1050  d.  Rodulfus  Glaber 

1054  d.  Hermannus 

1056  Anselm  of  Bi- 

1066  Lanfranc  abbot  of 

Contractus 

sate 

Caen 

1060  d.  Ekkehard  IV 

1007-72  Petrus  Da- 

1020-70  Avice- 

1066-78  Anselm  prior  of 

1058-77  Ji.  Lambert 

1070-89  Lanfranc  | 

miani 

bron 

Bee 

of  Hersfeld 

abp  of  Canterbury 

1075  ft.  Leo  Marsi- 

1075  Adam  of  Bremen 

1075  b.  Ordericus 

canus 

1084  f.  Carthusians 

1076  d.  Immed  of 

Vitalis 

1050-80  Constanti- 

Paderborn 

nus  Afer 

1088  d.  Berengarius  of 

1058-85  Alfanusabp 

Tours 

1077-93  f.  scripto- 

of  Salerno 

1078-93  Anselm  abbot  of 

rium  at  St  Albans 

1086-7  Victor  111 

Bee 

under  abbot  Paul 

(Desiderius  of 

1093-1109  Anselm 

Monte  Cassino) 

1098  f.  Cistercians 

abp  of  Canterbury 

nno 

1100  Conrad  of  Hir- 

mi  William  of 

1  ro6  d.  Roscellinus 

schau 

1109  d.  Anselm 

Apulia 

1112  d.  Sigebertof  Gem- 

bloux 

1113  Irnerius  of  Bo- 

1 1 15  d.  I  vo  of  Chartres 

logna 

1115  Radulfus  Tortarius 

1116  d.  Leo  Marsi- 

1120  Honorius  of  Autun 

1 1 18  d.  Florence  of 

canus 

1121  d.  William  of  Cham- 

Worcester 

1 1 17  d.  Grossolano 

peaux 

t.  '  \ 

abp  of  Milan 

1124  d.  Guibert  of  No- 

gent 

1 1 19-24  Ji.  Bernard  of 

Chartres 

1128  Jacobus  de  Ve- 

1125  d.Marbod  ofRennes 

Metellus  of  Tegern- 

netia 

1134  d.  Hildebert  of 

see 

1130  Adelard  of  Bath 

Tours 

1138  d.  Avem- 

1137  Sckol.  Med.  Mont- 

1 137-58  Otto  bp  of 

pace 

pellier 

Freising 

1130-50  Ray- 

1140  Bernard  of  Cluni 

mond  abp  of 

1079-1142  Abelard 

1142  d.  William  of 

Toledo;  trans- 

1142  d.  Hugo  of  St  Victor 

Malmesbury 

lations  from 

1142  d.  Ordericus  Vi- 

1147  b.  Giraldus 

Arabic  by 

talis 

1 1 46-5  8  W  ibald  abbot 

Cambrensis 

Joannes  His- 

1142  fl.  Petrus  Helias 

of  Corvey 

1154  d.  Geoffrey  of 

palensis  and 

1146  d.  Macarius  of 

Monmouth 

Gondisalvi 

Fleury 

1155  d.  Henry  of 

1143  Robertus 

1153  d.  Bernard  of  Clair- 

1152-90  Emp.  Fred- 

Huntingdon  j 

Retinensis 

vaux 

eric  Barbarossa 

1160  Serlo  Gramma- 

1150  Alberico  of  Bo- 

1145-53  Ji.  Bernard  Sil- 

ticus 

logna 

vester  of  Tours 

1170  Robert  of  Crick- 

1154  d.  William  of 

lade  1 

Conches 

1110-80  John  of  i 

1154  d.  Gilbert  de  la 

Salisbury 

Porree 

1173  Peter  of  Blois 

1156  d.  Petrus  Venera- 

settles  in  England 

bilis 

1175?  b.  Michael  Scot 

1167  William  of  Gap 

1 167-83  Simon  abbot 

< 

c.  1160-70  Univ.  Paris 

1185  Saxo  Gram- 

of  St  Albans  \ 

1187  d.  Gerard  of 

1175  Gerard  of 

1173  d.  Richard  of  St 

maticus 

1154-89  Henry  11 

Cremona 

Cremona 

Victor 

1187  Gunther’s  Li- 

1196  Walter  Map 

1190  Godfrey  of  Vi- 

1174  Matthew  of  Ven- 

gurinus 

archdeacon  of  Ox- 

terbo 

dome' 

1165-95  Herrad  of 

ford 

1191  Henricus  Septi- 

1126-98  Aver- 

1184  Jean  de  Hauteville 

Landsperg 

1198  d.  William  of 

mellensis 

roes 

1192  d.  Adam  of  St  Victor 

Newburgh 

1194  Burgundio  of 

1 1 35-1 204  Mai- 

Daniel  de  Morlai 

Pisa 

monides 

1200  d.  Nigellus  Wi- 

recker 

Continued  from  p.  430. 


CHAPTER  XXVII. 


THE  ELEVENTH  CENTURY. 


In  France  the  most  notable  teacher  in  the  first  quarter  of  the 
eleventh  century  is  Fulbert,  bishop  of  Chartres 
(d.  1029).  One  of  his  admirers  describes  the 
influence  of  his  teaching  as  passing  through 
many  channels : 


School  of 
Chartres 


‘  Gurges  altus  ut  minores  solvitur  in  alveos,... 

Sic  insignes  propagasti  per  diversa  plurimos,... 
Quorum  quisque  prae  se  tulit  quod  te  usus  fuerit’1. 


Among  the  many  pupils,  who  were  proud  to  acknowledge 
their  indebtedness  to  his  teaching,  were  Lambert  and  Adelmann 
at  Liege,  Berengarius  at  Tours,  Olbert  at  Gembloux,  Angelrann 
at  Saint-Riquier,  Reginald  at  Angers,  and  Domnus  at  Montmajour- 
lez- Arles2.  In  the  middle  of  the  century,  Saint-Evroult,  S.  of 
Lisieux  in  Normandy,  was  celebrated  as  a  school  , 

J  m  *  St  Evroult 

of  copyists,  which  sent  skilful  transcribers  to  give 
instruction  in  the  art  to  inmates  of  other  monasteries  in  France3. 
The  Norman  monastery  of  Bee  flourished  under 

J  Bee 

the  rule  of  Lanfranc4  (1045)  and  Anselm  (1066), 

both  of  whom  came  from  Northern  Italy  to  Normandy,  and  were 

thence  called  to  England  to  become  archbishops  of  Canterbury. 


1  Mabillon,  Analecta,  i  422  (Leon  Maitre,  Ecoles,  103) ;  Clerval,  Ecoles  de 
Chartres,  59  f. 

2  See  Index  to  Leon  Maitre ;  Clerval,  62  f,  72 — 91. 

3  Ordericus  Vitalis,  iii  483,  v  582. 

4  ib.  ii  246. 


S. 


32 


49^  LAMBERT  OF  HERSFELD.  ADAM  OF  BREMEN.  [CHAP. 


In  England  the  incursions  of  the  Danes,  which  ended  in  the 
conquest  of  the  island  by  Canute  (1016),  had  left  no  leisure  for 
the  pursuits  of  learning ;  and  the  influence  of  the  Norman 
Conquest  of  1066-71  on  the  intellectual  life  of  the  country  did 
not  take  effect  until  after  the  close  of  this  century.  In  the  story 
of  the  many  ruthless  devastations  recorded  in  the  Anglo-Saxon 
Chronicle,  books  are  mentioned  only  in  connexion  with  the 
plundering  of  Peterborough  by  Hereward  in  1070  : — 

‘  They  took  there  so  much  gold  and  silver,  and  so  many  treasures  in  money 
and  in  raiment,  and  in  books,  as  no  man  may  tell  to  another,  saying  they  did 
it  from  affection  to  the  monastery 


In  Germany,  the  eleventh  century  saw  the  foundation  of  the 
Schools  of  bishopric,  library  and  school  of  Bamberg  (1017), 
Bamberg  and  and  a  revival  of  learning  in  the  school  of  Paderborn. 

This  revival  was  due  in  part  to  the  influence  of 
Meinwerk,  bishop  in  1009-36,  and  still  more  to  that  of  his 
nephew,  Immed,  bishop  in  1052-76,  in  whose  time  the  authors 
studied  included  Sallust,  Virgil,  Horace  and  Statius  \  Latin  verse 
on  historic  and  other  themes  was  being  written  with  some  success ; 
but,  towards  the  end  of  the  century,  the  interest  in  the  Classics 
began  to  abate.  This  was  partly  due  to  the  influence  of  the 
monks  of  Cluni,  who  insisted  on  a  stricter  monastic  discipline  and 
a  more  complete  subservience  to  the  will  of  the  Church,  while,  in 
the  absorbing  struggle  for  supremacy  between  Hildebrand  and 
the  German  emperor,  the  claims  of  learning  fell  into  abeyance2. 
About  the  middle  of  the  century,  the  styles  of  Sallust  and  Livy 
were  admirably  combined  in  the  Annals  of  Lambert 
Hersfeid ;  of  Hersfeld  (d.  1077),  who  was  familiar  with 

Bremen f  Terence,  Virgil  and  Horace3,  while  Sallust  and 

Lucan  were  well  known  to  Adam  of  Bremen,  the 
author  of  the  Ecclesiastical  History  of  Ha?nburg  (c.  1075),  which 
is  an  important  authority  for  the  early  history  of  Northern 
Europe4. 


1  Vila  Meinwerci  in  Mon.  Germ.  Hist,  xi  140  (Bursian  i  55 ;  incompletely 
quoted  in  Heeren,  i  196). 

2  Bursian,  i  58 — 6 2. 

3  id.  i  57;  Norden,  Kunstprosa ,  750  f. 

4  Bursian,  i  58 


XXVII.]  NOTKER  LABEO.  HERMANNUS  CONTRACTUS.  499 


Early  in  the  century  we  find  a  distinguished  teacher  at 
St  Gallen  in  the  person  of  Notker  Labeo  (d.  1022), 

....  Notker  Labeo 

also  known  as  Notker  ‘the  German  from  his  having 
translated  (or  taken  part  in  translating)  into  that  language  not 
only  the  Psalms  of  David  but  also  the  Andria  of  Terence,  the 
Eclogues  of  Virgil,  and  the  Distichs  of  ‘  Cato  ’,  together  with 
Martianus  Capella,  several  treatises  of  Boethius,  and  the  Latin 
version  of  Aristotle’s  Categories  and  De  Interpretatione1 .  He  writes 
to  the  bishop  of  Sion,  on  the  upper  Rhone,  to  tell  him  that  the 
abbot  of  Reichenau  has  borrowed  the  bishop’s  copy  of  Cicero’s 
First  Philippic  and  the  commentary  on  the  Topica,  depositing  as 
security  for  their  return  the  Rhetoric  of  Cicero  and  of  Victorinus ; 
and  he  adds  that,  if  the  bishop  wants  certain  books,  he  must  send 
more  parchment  and  money  for  the  copyists2.  In  the  same 
century  a  monk  of  Reichenau,  Hermannus  ‘  Con¬ 
tractus’  (the  ‘cripple’,  1013 — 1054),  composed  a  * c^nt™ctusU,S 
Chronicle  founded  on  the  Latin  translation  of 
Eusebius  and  on  Cassiodorus  and  Bede3.  The  tenth  and  eleventh 
centuries,  the  golden  age  of  St  Gallen,  were  succeeded  by  an  iron 
age  in  the  twelfth  century. 

Meanwhile,  in  Italy,  where  the  study  of  ‘  grammar  ’  and  poetry 
seems  never  to  have  entirely  died  out,  young  nobles  and  students 
preparing  for  the  priesthood  were  not  unfrequently  learning  Latin 
literature  together  in  private  grammar-schools 4  conducted  either 
by  lay  ‘philosophers’  or  by  like-minded  clerics,  who  were  regarded 
with  suspicion  by  their  stricter  brethren.  One  of  these  liberal 
clerics,  Anselm  of  Bisate  (c.  1047-56),  describes 
the  Saints  and  the  Muses  as  struggling  for  his  of^Bisate 
possession,  while  he  was  utterly  perplexed  as  to 
which  he  should  prefer  : — ‘so  noble,  so  sweet,  were  both  companies 


1  Jourdain,  285!;  Cramer,  ii  43;  Bursian,  i  56.  The  translations  of 
Capella,  Boethius  and  Aristotle  were  published  by  Graff  in  1837,  and  also  by 
Hattemer,  Denkm .  d.  Mitte/alters,  iii  263 — 372  (Prantl,  Logik,  ii2  61  f). 

2  J.  Grimm,  kl.  Schriften ,  v  190;  P.  Piper,  Die  Schriften  Notkers  u.  seiner 
Schule.  i  861  (Norden,  708). 

3  Bursian,  i  56  f. 

4  Giesebrecht,  De  Litt.  Studiis  apud  Italos ,  p.  15  (  =  29  of  Ital.  trans.); 
Ozanam,  Documents  Inedits  (1850),  1 — 79. 


32—2 


500  ANSELM  OF  BISATE.  DESIDERIUS.  ALFANUS.  [CHAP. 


Desiderius 


that  I  could  not  choose  either  of  them;  so  that,  were  it  possible, 

I  had  rather  both  than  either’1.  In  the  same  century,  Desiderius, 
the  abbot  of  Monte  Cassino,  who  became  Pope  as 
Victor  III  (1086-7),  was  causing  his  monks  to 
make  copies  of  Horace,  and  Ovid’s  Fasti,  as  well  as  Seneca  and 
several  treatises  of  Cicero2;  Cicero,  Sallust  and  Virgil  were 
familiar  to  Leo  Marsicanus,  the  Chronicler  of  Monte  Cassino3; 
and  the  composition  of  Latin  hexameters  and  elegiacs,  and  of 
lyrics  after  the  model  of  Horace  and  Boethius,  was  successfully 
cultivated  by  Alfanus,  a  monk  of  the  same  monastery,  who  was 
archbishop  of  Salerno  from  1058  to  1085 4.  The  strict  disci¬ 
plinarian,  Petrus  Damiani  (d.  1072),  protests  in  a  narrow-minded 
way  against  the  ‘grammatical’  studies  of  the  monks  of  his  time, 
who  ‘cared  little  for  the  Rule  of  Benedict  in  comparison  with  the 
rules  of  Donatus’5;  he  admits,  however,  that  ‘to  study  poets  and 
philosophers  with  a  view  to  making  the  wit  more  keen  and  better 
fitted  to  penetrate  the  mysteries  of  the  Divine  Word,  is  to  spoil 
the  Egyptians  of  their  treasures  in  order  to  build  the  Tabernacle 
of  God’6 7.  In  sacred  verse  he  is  best  represented  by  the  hymn  on 
‘  the  joys  and  the  glory  of  Paradise  ’,  beginning  with  the  words  : — 
Ad perennis  vitae  fotitem 1 . 

Most  of  our  evidence  as  to  the  knowledge  of  Greek  in  this 
century  is  derived  from  certain  points  of  contact 
century  xi  between  the  West  and  Constantinople.  Early  in 
the  century,  Greek  artists  came  to  the  Old  Rome 
from  the  New  to  cast  the  bronze  doors  of  the  ancient  basilica  of 
‘St  Paul’s  outside  the  Walls’,  and  Greek  characters  were  used  to 
inscribe  the  names  of  the  prophets  adorning  those  doors8.  Greek, 


1  Rhetorimachia,  ii;  Dummler,  Anselm  der  Peripatetiker ,  p.  39  (Poole’s 
Medieval  Thought ,  82). 

2  Chron.  Cassin.  iii  c.  63  in  Muratori  iv  474  ;  Giesebrecht,  34  (59  f  Ital. 
trans.) ;  Balzani’s  Chroniclers ,  160  f. 

3  d.  c.  1 1 16;  Pertz,  Mon.  vii ;  Balzani,  164 — 173  {Leo  Ostiensis ). 

4  Giesebrecht  54,  66 — 95  (in  Ital.  ed.  only);  Ozanam,  l.  c.,  255 — 270; 
Shipa,  Alfano  /,  Arcivescovo  di  Salerno ,  p.  45  (Salerno,  1880). 

5  Opusc.  xiii  c.  11 ;  Migne,  cxlv  306. 

6  Opusc.  xxxii  c.  9;  Migne,  cxlv  560. 

7  Trench,  Sacred  Latin  Poetry ,  315;  J.  M.  Neale,  Hymns  (1865),  2 — 15. 

8  Gradenigo,  Letteratura  Greco- Ltaliana  (Brescia,  1759),  p.  29. 


XXVII.] 


PAPIAS.  BENZO. 


501 

as  well  as  Latin,  was  in  use  in  the  services  at  St  Peter’s1.  A 
patriarch  of  Venice,  Dominico  Marengo,  who  was  sent  to  Con¬ 
stantinople  to  promote  the  reunion  of  the  Churches,  addressed 
the  bishop  of  Antioch  in  a  Greek  letter  (1053),  which  is  still 
extant2.  Thirteen  years  later,  an  Italian  known  as  John  Italus 
was  lecturing  at  Constantinople  on  Plato  and  Aristotle,  and  on 
Proclus  and  Porphyry3.  Meanwhile,  in  the  literature  of  text¬ 
books,  we  find  Papias  the  Lombard  (, c .  105  3) 4 
compiling  a  dictionary  of  Latin,  in  which  he  marks 
the  quantity  and  gives  the  gender  and  the  inflexions  of  the  words, 
but  draws  no  distinction  between  the  ancient  classical  forms  and 
the  barbarous  forms  in  modern  use,  and  cares  little  for  matters  of 
etymology.  But  he  invariably  gives  the  Latin  rendering  of  any 
Greek  word  which  he  has  occasion  to  quote;  he  even  transcribes 
five  lines  of  Hesiod  ( Theog .  907-1 1),  and  translates  them  into 
Latin  hexameters5.  It  has,  however,  been  suspected  that  this  is 
an  interpolation  due  to  the  editor  of  the  Venice  edition  (1485)6. 
The  work  includes  definitions  of  legal  terms,  with  excerpts  from 
earlier  glossaries  and  from  manuals  of  the  liberal  arts,  including 
the  current  text-books  on  logic7.  It  was  still  in  use  in  the  six¬ 
teenth  century.  About  1061  Benzo,  bishop  of  Alba,  in  his 
panegyric  on  the  emperor  Henry  IV,  makes  a  Benzo 
display  of  his  Greek  and  Latin  learning  by  naming 
Pindar  and  Homer,  as  well  as  Terence,  Virgil,  Lucan,  Statius, 
Horace  (Horatius  noster ),  and  Quintilian8 ;  but  it  is  probable  that 
his  acquaintance  with  Greek  was  solely  due  to  his  South-Italian 
origin9.  Evidence  of  Italian  interest  in  Greek  literature  is  traced 
by  the  Laurentian  librarian,  Bandini,  in  the  Greek  mss  of  the 
tenth  and  eleventh  centuries  belonging  to  the  library  of  the  Bene¬ 
dictine  monks  in  Florence10.  Italy  claims  two  students  of  Greek 

1  Gradenigo,  Letteratura  Greco- Italiana  (Brescia,  1759)1  p.  31. 

2  ib.  40. 

3  p.  403  supra ;  Prantl’s  Logik,  ii2  301. 

4  Tiraboschi,  iii  339 f;  Hallam,  Lit.  i  72“*;  p.  639  infra. 

5  Gradenigo,  38. 

6  Haase,  De  Medii  Aevi  Studiis  Philologicis ,  32  n. 

7  Prantl,  Logik ,  ii2  70.  8  Graf,  Roma ,  ii  172. 

9  Dresdner,  Kultur-  u.  Sittengeschichte,  195. 

10  Specimen  litt.  Flore ntinae  s.  xv,  i  (1748),  p.  xxvi. 


502 


LANFRANC  AND  ANSELM. 


[CHAP. 


v. 


in  the  persons  of  Lanfranc  and  Anselm,  both  of  whom  were 
of  Lombard  race.  Lanfranc  of  Pavia  (b.  c.  1005), 
an^Anseim  who  studied  the  liberal  arts  and  law  in  Italy,  spent 
many  years  at  Bee  in  Normandy,  and  was  abbot  of 
Caen  (1066)  and  archbishop  of  Canterbury  (1070-89).  He  is 
said  to  have  studied  Greek1.  Bee  was  also  (1060-93)  the  monastic 
retreat  of  another  future  archbishop  of  Canterbury,  Anselm  of 
Aosta  (d.  1109),  who  shows  an  interest  in  Greek  by  quoting  the 
opinions  of  the  Greeks2,  by  inquiring  for  copies  of  their  writings3, 
and  by  selecting  Greek  names  for  the  titles  of  two  of  his  works, 
moiiologion  and  proslogio?iA.  He  recommends  his  pupils  to  study 
Virgil  and  other  profane  authors  with  due  reserve5. 

Before  turning  to  the  history  of  Scholasticism  in  connexion 
with  the  name  of  Anselm,  we  may  briefly  notice  that,  early  in  the 
eleventh  century,  a  Greek  Lectionary  was  copied  at  Cologne  for 
the  Abbey  of  St  Denis  (io2i)e;  also  that,  among  the  authorities 
for  Norman  history,  Dudo  of  St  Quentin  uses  not  a  few  Greek 
words  in  the  midst  of  the  strange  medley  of  prose  and  verse 
in  which  he  panegyrises  the  early  dukes  of  Normandy,  while  a 
more  important  writer,  William  of  Poitiers,  is  familiar  with  Sallust 
and  Caesar7.  In  the  same  age,  the  monastery  of  Hildesheim  rose 
to  distinction  under  Bernward,  while  that  of  Fulda  was  on  the 
decline  in  1066.  In  the  second  half  of  the  century,  St  Gallen  and 
Hirschau  were  continuing  to  flourish,  Hirschau  becoming  specially 
famous  as  a  school  of  copyists8.  The  latter  part  of  the  century 
saw  the  foundation  of  two  new  religious  Orders,  or  new  branches 

1  Migne,  cl  30  B;  on  Lanfranc’s  studies,  cp.  Crozals  (1877),  c*  x>  2*  His 
influence  may  be  traced  in  a  ‘  prickly  ’  style  of  writing  probably  derived  from 
the  ‘  Lombard  ’  hand  which  he  apparently  introduced  at  Bee  and  Caen,  and 
afterwards  at  Canterbury  (M.  R.  James,  Sandars  Lecture,  29  May,  1903,  and 
Ancient  Libraries  of  Canterbury,  p.  xxviii).  See  facsimile  on  p.  503. 

2  Migne,  clviii  1144  c. 

3  ib.  1 1 20  C. 

4  Tougard,  p.  55. 

5  Ep.  i  55,  exceptis  his  in  quibus  aliqua  turpitudo  sonat.  Cp.  Migne,  clvi 
852  f. 

6  Lectionary  of  Epistles  and  Gospels ,  now  in  Paris  Library  (Omont,  MSS 
Grecs  Dates ,  pi.  xiv). 

7  Korting,  Litt.  Ital.  ill  i  85-7. 

8  Heeren,  i  234  k 


XXVII.] 


CARTHUSIANS  AND  CISTERCIANS. 


503 


of  the  great  Benedictine  Order,  the  Carthusians  (1084)  and  the 
Cistercians  (1098).  The  Rule  of  the  Carthusians  enjoins  the 
duty  of  keeping  useful  books  and  diligently  transcribing  them. 
Guigo  (1133),  the  fifth  abbot  of  the  Grande 
Chartreuse  near  Grenoble,  who  is  described  by  and  Cistercians 
Trithemius  as  a  man  of  learning  in  secular  as  well 
as  sacred  literature,  insists  on  special  diligence  in  the  work  of 
a  copyist1.  The  Cistercians  distinguished  themselves  in  the 
following  century  by  their  skill  in  calligraphy2;  but  neither  of 
these  Orders  made  any  provision  for  schools  open  to'  pupils 
unconnected  with  their  monasteries3. 

1  Heeren,  i  254  ;  cp.  J.  W.  Clark,  Care  of  Books,  69. 

2  ib.  232 ;  cp.  Hist.  Litt.  tie  la  France ,  vii  n ;  J.  W.  Clark,  70,  84-9. 

3  On  education  in  cent,  x — xi,  cp.  Schmid’s  Gesch.  der  '  Erziehung,  11  i 
.  232 — 58  (where  ^Elfric  is  strangely  omitted). 


JpiuK  hbru  <Ltrz>  prcvw  cmyni  LlUfrutfcvS  ardncff  dc  hcxcnfi  ccnotno  in 
‘  .inched  riviin  dcfcvri {ixi  cXccdf 1  dedi-Slyf  erii  d& ; 
d}fbnlci%ix~>  Mustrhenut  Cn~. 


itiver 


(^Jtcmcnf cyffcruuf feruop. dt Giffeut — ico  anrairDcnmlt ard nepo. fdwX&tipUcXbcnedicnarie. 
trntntanur  bnuf  dikcnonifdtrtgmi .  qutafwi^x-b^opmiimtrntc-lTOgtanna-reptufodtfiaTKcfrr 
fjmtnu  do  mcnhcafciarzu  efhnuin .  ficneg-  cerri ixcnc  c^nuxtinuvClx^jrvi^dihgml  aplanm' 
4c4tc  iiuhr  un  yvrfcnnX  (xoyt am.  cucpnlit  acfaliraritetKw.ru  enX<pti4  ccd£ 
dtutnuerfe.  culuaxn-  nvixtmoinhocT^oixne^anaf- (butdJra^nfactwgtUttnl^  ocuUfde 
«avi4mintnoiicn*fe  vnnffrniztre  ruX  pma  Tntrjrtopomr:  vrduvcnegUgvma zuX  emends  / 
rr  rum  dafocec.  0  dmtr  mtfvrafo^midettna  nifguberv<ttwntf. pxte  dmrr  uniu^ctinflamb>4gt  ^ 
are;  r^4cpuminwi4*trwtM^ptviyc-Ti>rrumtf<«^tufl&rumtIv  (ffi.iiivXiyUfycdldtirutntM 
umiftfc  Adummo  ttfreoa  .«r.  c?  p<marrnfm  nytps.itebimrAdiicrCufcX  Utftag1  fr<*vulu mu  nu  ^ 
rt^nuT. tvfptccpcrni  utif fupm  ^uX^nd^urcdftzdlmfiui-  ycnximtmdefyin  - 

tCnadmena  nta  imrrmorXr^vujiicaf.^jnciifcmmemiim'  mu nX  epucadi  edrXtjiiXrcftrdo 
mum  fufoyitn- tnulnfy  tmcWimare-  udmtn.  fnicarcrra’4tkcTwmfni^  pyfemb- 

kufcoWnenf.  a&j&u- tunttw  tnaficanwnf.ifiwm  mmcmwXA^bnv  yiyo  cuhf a'rncmmttwi  •edf 
<T*4£tfwtv.fttmtl<j!  ^uoyirrdVn^^acfii|)but4t^cunitn'fca’ni.'i'onun4<cctanryulUiUirer/'tticUnv«n. 
tmdf.  omhj»  ccrpcf  frfmvfcvntn  pnrefilua.  riadborurmvunlra^  fc^  ftxufw  fettanC 

jrarrmrWrmrr. 


Specimens  of  Christ  Church,  Canterbury,  hand  (c.  1070-84),  from 
the  last  few  leaves  of  a  beautifully  written  xi  century  ms  of  Decretals 
(in  a  Christ  Church  hand)  and  Canons  (apparently  in  an  Italian  hand.), 
given  by  Lanfranc  to  Christ  Church,  Canterbury,  and  by  Whitgift  to 
Trinity  College,  Cambridge  ;  ms  B  16.  44  (M.  R.  James,  Catalogue  of 
Western  MSS ,  i  540  f).  Size  rather  larger  than  £  of  the  original.  See 
further  in  List  of  Illustrations. 


CHAPTER  XXVIII. 


THE  TWELFTH  CENTURY. — THE  SCHOOLMEN 
AND  THE  CLASSICS. 


While  John  the  Scot  was  a  precursor  of  Scholasticism,  an 
important  place  in  the  first  period  of  its  history 

The  early 

Schoolmen  is  occupied  by  Anselm.  It  may  therefore  be  con- 

ciassics  venient,  at  this  stage  of  our  survey,  to  glance  at 

that  history,  so  far  as  it  has  points  of  contact  with 
the  study  of  Greek  or  Latin  texts,  and  to  endeavour  to  indicate, 
in  the  case  of  the  leading  Schoolmen,  the  extent  of  their  acquaint¬ 
ance  with  the  Classics1. 

The  term  o-xoAouttiko?  is  first  found  in  a  letter  addressed  by 
Theophrastus  to  his  pupil  Phanias2;  and  the  title  of  doctores 
scholastici  was  given  to  the  teachers  of  theology  and  the  liberal 
arts,  and  particularly  to  the  teachers  of  dialectic,  in  the  Caroline 
age.  Scholasticism  may  be  described  as  a  reproduction  of  ancient 


1  Among  the  books  consulted  in  this  connexion  are  Ueberweg’s  Grundriss 
der  Gesch.  der  Philosophie  (ed.  8  Heinze,  1894),  E.T.  1875;  Haureau,  La 
Philosophic  Scolastique,  ed.  2  (1872);  Prantl,  Gesch.  der  Logik  im  Abendlande 
( 1 855—70) ;  Maurice,  Mediaeval  Philosophy  (1857;  new  ed.  1870);  Milman’s 
Lat.  Christ,  ix  100 — 161;  also  Tables  vi,  vii  in  F.  Schultze’s  Stammbaum  der 
Philosophie  (1890),  and  Prof.  Seth  in  Enc.  Brit,  xxi  417 — 431  (where  the 
Histories  by  Kaulich  and  Stockl  are  quoted).  Among  the  monographs  on 
portions  of  the  subject  are  Jourdain’s  Recherches  (ed.  1843) ;  Rousselot’s  £tudes 
(1840-2);  Cousin’s  Introd.  to  Abelard  (1836),  reprinted  in  Frag.  Phil,  ii; 
Haureau’s  Singularites  Hist,  et  Litt.  (1861);  and  R.  L.  Poole’s  Illustrations 
of  the  History  of  Medieval  Thought  (1884);  and,  among  more  general  works, 
Erdmann’s  Grundriss  der  Gesch.  der  Philosophie ,  ed.  3,  1878,  E.T.  i898a,  i 
§§  149 — 225  ;  and  Schmid’s  Gesch.  der  Erziehung,  n  i  282 — 308. 

2  Diog.  Laert.  v  50. 


CH.  XXVIII.]  THE  SCHOLASTIC  PROBLEM. 


505 


philosophy  under  the  control  of  ecclesiastical  doctrine1.  Its 

history  (including  that  of  its  precursors)  falls  into  two  main 

divisions,  (1)  the  accommodation  of  Aristotelian  logic  and  Neo- 
Platonic  philosophy  to  the  doctrine  of  the  Church,  from  the  time 
of  Joannes  Scotus  (d.  875)  to  that  of  Amalrich  (d.  1207)  and  his 

followers,  i.e.  from  century  ix  to  the  beginning  of  century  xm ; 

(2)  the  accommodation  of  the  Aristotelian  philosophy,  which  had 
now  become  fully  known,  to  the  dogmas  of  the  Church,  from  the 
time  of  Alexander  of  Hales  (d.  1245)  to  the  end  of  the  Middle 
Ages. 

John  the  Scot  had  affirmed  the  identity  of  true  religion  with 
true  philosophy2,  but  he  interpreted  the  teaching  of  the  Church 
in  the  light  of  ‘  Dionysius  the  Areopagite  ’,  whose  doctrines  he 
wrongly  supposed  to  be  those  of  the  early  Christians,  whereas 
they  were  really  those  of  the  Neo-Platonists  of  the  latter  part  of 
the  fifth  century3.  Believing  that  the  ‘general’  existed  before  the 
‘particular’,  he  practically  held  the  Platonic  doctrine  of  ideas  in 
the  form  afterwards  expressed  by  the  phrase,  universalia  ante  rem . 
On  the  other  hand,  those  whom  he  describes  as  dialedici  held 
that  individual  objects  were  substances  in  a  primary  sense,  while 
species  and  genera  were  substances  only  in  a  secondary  way.  This 
doctrine  was  derived  partly  from  the  dialectical  works  of  Aristotle, 
and  from  Porphyry’s  Introduction ,  as  translated  and  expounded  by 
Boethius ;  and  partly  from  works  attributed  to  St  Augustine. 
Porphyry’s  Introduction,  as  translated  by  Boethius,  mentions  the 
five  predicables,  i.e.  the  notions  of  genus,  species,  difference, 
property,  and  accident.  It  also  touches  on  the  question  whether 
genera  and  species  have  a  substantial  existence,  or  whether  they 
exist  merely  as  mental  conceptions.  This  question,  and  others 
arising  out  of  it,  had  been  suggested  to  Porphyry  by  the 

1  ‘  The  scholastic  philosophy  was  an  attempt  to  codify  all  existing  knowledge 
under  laws  or  formulae  analogous  to  the  general  principles  of  justice.  It  was 
no  attempt... to  bind  all  knowledge  with  chains  to  the  rock  of  S.  Peter,  or  even 
to  the  rock  of  Aristotle. ..Truth  is  one  and  indivisible,  and  the  medieval 
philosophy  found  its  work  in  reconciling  all  existing  knowledge  logically  with 
the  One  Truth  which  it  believed  itself  to  possess’.  Stubbs,  Lcchires  on 
Aledieval... History,  Lect.  xi,  21 11. 

2  p.  475  supra . 

3  p.  369  supra. 


5  ,o6 


REALISM  AND  NOMINALISM. 


[CHAP. 


Metaphysics  of  Aristotle,  by  the  Parnienides  of  Plato,  and  by  the 
teaching  of  his  own  master,  Plotinus.  Porphyry,  however,  de¬ 
clined  to  discuss  them,  but  this  passage  of  Porphyry,  as  translated 
by  Boethius1,  gave  the  first  impulse  to  the  long  controversy 
between  Realism  and  Nominalism,  which  continued  until  the 
revival  of  learning.  ‘A  single  ray  borrowed  from  the  literature 
of  the  ancient  world  called  Scholasticism  into  being;  the  complete 
revelation  of  that  literature  extinguished  it’2. 

Plato’s  doctrine  (as  stated  by  Aristotle)  that  ‘universals’  have 
an  independent  existence  and  are  ‘  before  ’  individual  objects 
(whether  in  point  of  rank  alone,  or  in  point  of  time  as  well)  is 
extreme  Realism.  Its  formula  is  universalia  sunt  realia  ante  rem. 
The  Aristotelian  view  that  ‘universals’,  while  possessing  a  real 
existence,  exist  only  in  individual  objects,  is  moderate  Realism. 
Its  formula  is  universalia  su?it  realia  in  re.  Nominalism,  on  the 
other  hand,  implies  that  individuals  alone  have  a  real  existence, 
that  genera  and  species  are  only  subjective  combinations  of  similar 
elements,  united  by  the  aid  of  the  same  concept,  which  we  express 
by  one  and  the  same  word  ( vox  or  nomen).  Nominalism  has  two 
varieties,  stress  being  laid  in  (i)  on  the  subjective  nature  of  the 
concept,  and  in  (2)  on  the  identity  of  the  word  employed  to 
denote  the  objects  comprehended  under  the  concept.  (1)  is 
Conceptualism,  and  (2)  is  extreme  Nominalism ;  and  the  formula 
of  both  is  universalia  sunt  nomina  post  rem.  All  these  views 
appear  in  different  degrees  of  development  in  the  ninth  and  tenth 
centuries. 

The  first  period  of  Scholasticism  began  in  Platonic  Realism 
and  ended  in  Conceptualism ;  while  the  second  began  in  Aristo¬ 
telian  Realism  and  ended  in  Nominalism.  Thus,  in  the  first 
period,  the  Realism  of  Joannes  Scotus  (d.  875),  and  that  of 
Anselm  (d.  1109),  which  stands  in  contrast  with  the  early 
Nominalism  of  Roscellinus  (d.  1106),  are  followed  by  the  Realism 
of  William  of  Champeaux  (d.  1121)  and  the  Conceptualism  of 
Abelard  (d.  1142).  In  the  second,  the  Aristotelian  Realism  of 
the  Franciscans,  Alexander  of  Hales  (d.  1245)  and  Bonaventura 
(d.  1274),  and  of  the  Dominicans,  Albertus  Magnus  (d.  1280)  and 

1  p.  239  supra. 

2  Cousin  quoted  on  p.  429  (cp.  Mullinger’s  Cambridge,  i  50). 


XXVIII.] 


ARISTOTLE. 


50; 

Thomas  Aquinas  (d.  1274),  is  criticised  by  Roger  Bacon  (d.  1294) 
and  Duns  Scotus  (d.  1308),  who  are  succeeded  by  the  great 
Nominalist,  William  of  Ockham  (d.  1347). 

Until  the  fourth  decad  of  the  twelfth  century,  the  only  logical 
writings  of  the  ancients  known  in  the  Middle  Ages 

•  .  .  Aristotle 

were  Aristotle  s  Categories  and  De  Interpretatione 
(in  the  translation  of  Boethius) ;  Porphyry’s  Introduction  to  the 
Categories ,  as  translated  by  Victorinus  and  Boethius ;  the 
Augustinian  Principia  Dialecticae ,  and  the  Pseudo-Augustinian 
Categoriae  Decern ;  Martianus  Capella,  and  Cassiodorus  On 
Dialectic ;  and  the  following  works  of  Boethius : — his  com¬ 
mentaries  on  the  above  translations  of  Porphyry  and  on  Aristotle 
De  Interpretatione  and  Cicero’s  Topica ,  with  certain  minor  works 
on  syllogisms  etc.  Besides  these  there  was  Isidore.  Thus  of  the 
five  parts  of  Aristotle’s  Organon ,  the  Categories  and  De  Inter¬ 
pretatione  alone  were  known,  while  the  Analytics,  Topics  and 
Sophistici  Elenchi  remained  (for  the  time  being)  unknown.  The 
Analytics  and  Topics  (as  translated  by  Boethius)  were  unknown  to 
Sigebert  of  Gembloux  (d.  m2)1;  they  came  into  notice  after 
1128  (the  date  of  the  Venice  translation  by  Jacobus  Clericus)2,  the 
Prior  Analytics  being  discussed  in  1132 3  by  Adam  du  Petit-Pont 
(afterwards  bishop  of  St  Asaph),  and  cited  by  Gilbert  de  la  Porree 
(d.  1154)4.  The  whole  of  the  Organon  was  known  to  John  of 
Salisbury  (in  1159),  while  the  Physics  and  Metaphysics  came  into 
notice  about  12005.  Meanwhile,  Plato  was  represented  by  the 
Latin  rendering  of  part  of  the  Timaeus  executed  by  Chalcidius 
(cent,  iv),  which  included  some  account  of  the  theory  of  Ideas6; 
by  the  statement  of  Plato’s  opinions  in  Aristotle;  by  the  passages 
quoted  in  Cicero,  Augustine  and  Macrobius;  and  by  the  account 

1  Prantl,  Logik ,  ii2  77,  21 2  f. 

2  P-535  infra- 

3  Cousin,  Frag.  Phil,  ii  333  f ;  Prantl,  ii2  104. 

4  Prantl,  ii2  105,  217  f. 

5  Amable  Jourdain,  Reckerches  critiques  sur  I'dge  et  Vorigine  des  traductions 
latines  cT Aristote,  et  sur  les  commentaires  grecs  ou  arabes  employes  par  les 
docteurs  scolastiques  (1817),  ed.  2  (Charles  Jourdain,  1843).  Cousin,  Frag. 
Phil,  ii  55 — 62  ;  Haureau,  i  90 — 12 1 ;  Prantl,  Logik ,  ii  c.  13  and  14  ;  Summary 
in  Ueberweg,  i  367  E.T. 

6  28  a,  48  E  (trans.  ends  with  53  c). 


LANFRANC.  ANSELM. 


[CHAP. 


508 

of  his  tenets  given  by  Apuleius  De  Dogmate  Platonis.  The 
Phaedo  and  the  Meno  had  been  translated  about  1 1 60  \  but  were 
little  known. 

Late  in  the  tenth  and  early  in  the  eleventh  century,  Logic  was 
eagerly  studied  at  Fulda  and  Wurzburg,  and  at  St  Gallen  under 
Notker  Labeo1 2;  also,  in  France,  in  the  eleventh  century,  by 
Gerbert  and  his  pupil,  Fulbert  of  Chartres  (d.  1029),  and  by  the 
latter’s  pupil,  Berengarius  of  Tours  (d.  1088).  Berengarius  cast 
contempt  on  the  traditional  authority  of  Priscian, 
andeLanfrancS  Donatus  and  Boethius3,  and  preferred  the  study  of 
the  arts  of  Grammar  and  Logic  to  that  of  the 
ancient  authors,  thus  anticipating  a  conflict  which  will  attract  our 
attention  in  the  sequel4.  He  also  anticipates  one  of  the  great 
scholastic  debates  of  the  future  in  his  attack  on  the  doctrine 
afterwards  known  as  that  of  transubstantiation,  which  was  defended- 
by  Lanfranc  (d.  1089).  But,  in  this  controversy,  both  the  con¬ 
tending  parties  (unlike  the  Schoolmen  of  the  future)  appealed  to 
authority,  and  not  to  reason5.  Reason  subordinated  to  authority 
was  the  guiding  principle  of  Lanfranc’s  great  successor,  Anselm 
(d.  1109),  the  champion  of  Realism  and  also  of 
a n^°An s elm S  the  normal  tenets  of  the  Church  against  that  early 

Nominalist,  Roscellinus  (d.  1106)6,  whose  Nominal¬ 
ism  led  him  to  tritheism.  ‘The  Platonically  conceived  proof  of 
the  being  of  God  contained  in  the  Monologium  shows  that  Anselm’s 
doctrine  of  the  universals  as  substances  in  things  ( universalia  in 
re)  was  closely  connected  in  his  mind  with  the  thought  of  the 
universalia  ante  re?n,  the  exemplars  of  perfect  goodness  and  truth 
and  justice,  by  participation  in  which  all  earthly  things  are  judged 
to  possess  those  qualities.  In  this  way  he  rises  like  Plato  to  the 
absolute  Goodness,  Justice  and  Truth,  and  then  proceeds  in 

1  By ‘Euericus’  Aristippus,  archdeacon  of  Catania  (Rashdall’s  Universities , 
ii  744).  The  trans.  of  the  Phaedo  is  found  in  Paris  catalogues  of  1250  and 
1290  (V.  Le  Clerc,  Hist.  Litt.  de  la  France  au  14^  s.,  425,  cp.  Cousin,  Frag . 
Phil,  ii  4 66).  The  translator  is  identified  by  Rose  ( Hermes ,  i,  1866,  373-89) 
with  Henricus  Aristippus,  possibly  the  ‘learned  Greek’  with  whom  John  of 
Salisbury  studied  the  Organon ,  probably  at  Beneventum  (p.  520  infra). 

2  p.  499  supra.  3  Prantl,  Logik ,  ii2  73  n. 

4  End  of  c.  xxxii.  5  Cp.  Poole’s  Medieval  Thought ,  102  f. 

6  Prantl,  Logik ,  ii2  78 — 96. 


XXVIII.] 


ABELARD  AND  THE  CLASSICS. 


509 


Neo-platonic  fashion  to  a  deduction  of  the  Trinity  as  involved 
in  the  idea  of  the  Divine  Word’1. 

Nominalism  made  its  first  prominent  appearance  in  the  latter 
part  of  the  eleventh  century2,  when  certain  Schoolmen  ascribed  to 
Aristotle  the  doctrine  that  Logic  was  concerned  only  with  the 
right  use  of  words  and  that  genera  and  species  were  only  subjective, 
and  disputed  the  real  existence  of  ‘universals’.  These  Schoolmen 
were  sometimes  called  the  ‘  modern  dialecticians  ’,  because  they 
opposed  the  traditional  realistic  interpretation  of  Aristotle.  The 
■extreme  Nominalism  of  Roscellinus  and  the  Realism  of  William 
of  Champeaux  (d.  1121)3  were  impartially  opposed  by  a  celebrated 
pupil  of  both,  Abelard  (d.  1142),  who  maintained 
the  moderate  form  of  Nominalism  since  known  as 
Conceptualism4.  Abelard  went  further  than  his  predecessors  in  the 
application  of  dialectic  to  theology.  In  dialectic  he  regards  Aristotle 
as  the  highest  authority: — ‘if  we  suppose  Aristotle,  the  leader  of  the 
Peripatetics,  to  have  been  in  fault,  what  other  authority  shall  we 
receive  in  matters  of  this  kind?’  The  only  thing  that  Abelard  cannot 
tolerate  in  Aristotle  is  his  polemic  against  Plato.  Abelard  prefers, 
by  a  favourable  interpretation  of  Plato,  to  pronounce  both  to  be 
in  the  right5.  His  voluminous  writings  include  glosses  on 
Porphyry’s  Introduction,  on  Aristotle’s  Categories  and  De  Inter¬ 
pretation,  and  also  on  the  Topica  of  Boethius6.  He  was 
acquainted  with  no  Greek  works  except  in  Latin  translations, 
but  he  advises  the  nuns  of  ‘  the  Paraclete  ’  to  study  Greek  and 
Hebrew,  as  well  as  Latin,  and  points  to  the  example  set  by  their 
mother  superior,  Heloissa7.  Plato8  he  knew  only  through  the 
quotations  in  Aristotle,  Cicero,  Macrobius,  Augustine  and 
Boethius.  He  states  that  he  could  not  learn  Plato’s  dialectic 

from  Plato’s  own  writings,  because  the  latter  had  not  been 
translated9.  He  certainly  used  the  translation  of  the  Twiaeus 

1  Seth  in  Enc.  Brit,  xxi  422. 

2  On  ‘  precursors  of  Nominalism  \  cp.  Poole,  336  f. 

3  Michaud  (1867);  Prantl,  ii  i302f. 

4  Poole,  i4of. 

5  Dial.  pp.  204-6  (Ueberweg,  i  391  E.T.). 

6  Ueberweg,  i  388.  7  Cousin,  Frag.  Phil,  ii  51. 

8  Inst.  Theol.  i  17  ;  ii  17  etc. 

9  Dial.  205  f;  Cousin,  Frag.  Phil,  ii  50 — 56. 


ABELARD  AND  THE  CLASSICS. 


[CHAP. 


f)IO 

by  Chalcidius1;  he  is  familiar  with  the  ‘pattern-forms,  which 
Plato  calls  the  ideas  ’,  and  he  knows  that  ‘  Plato  conceived  of 
God  as  an  artificer  who  planned  and  ordered  everything  before  he 
made  it’2.  He  is  also  inclined  to  accept  Plato’s  exclusion  of 
poets  from  his  commonwealth,  holding  that  their  study,  however 
necessary,  should  not  be  too  long  continued3.  He  states  that 
Aristotle’s  Physics  and  Metaphysics  had  not  been  translated4. 
His  knowledge  of  Aristotle  was  confined  to  the  Categories  and  De 
Interpretations^  and  the  Analytica  Prior  a  in  some  other  translation 
than  that  of  Boethius5.  Besides  these,  his  text-books  include 
Porphyry’s  Introduction,  four  treatises  of  Boethius6,  and  the 
writings  ascribed  to  ‘Hermes  Trismegistus ’.  But  before  com¬ 
posing  his  Dialedica ,  which  is  his  most  permanent  contribution 
to  the  advancement  of  learning  (and  must  be  earlier  than  1132), 
he  certainly  had  an  indirect  knowledge  of  three  of  the  logical 
treatises  of  Aristotle,  which  gradually  became  known  after  11287. 
The  anonymous  treatise  De  Intellectibus ,  once  ascribed  to  Abelard, 
implies  an  acquaintance  with  a  'translation  of  the  Analytica 
Posterior  a*  different  from  that  of  Boethius.  While  his  strictly 
orthodox  opponent,  Bernard  of  Clairvaux,  looked  with  suspicion 
on  all  human  learning,  Abelard  maintained  the  importance  of 
secular  literature  as  an  indispensable  aid  to  sacred  studies9. 
When  he  foresaw  the  likelihood  of  his  own  condemnation  for 
heresy,  he  gave  proof  of  his  familiarity  with  the  Latin  Classics 
by  turning  to  Gilbert  de  la  Porree  (who  apparently  lay  under 
similar  suspicions),  and  applying  to  Gilbert  the  line  of  Horace: — 

‘nam  tua  res  agitur,  paries  cum  proximus  ardet’10. 

Even  so  strong  an  opponent  of  secular  learning  as  Peter  the 

1  Intr.  ad  Theol.  clxxviii  1007,  1013  Migne  (Tim.  27  c,  34  c). 

2  Intr.  ad  Theol.  ii  109  (Poole,  172). 

3  Theol.  Chr.  ii  445  (Poole,  169). 

4  Dialect,  p.  200  Cousin. 

5  Prantl,  ii2  100  f. 

6  Dial.  i4of,  libros  Divisionum  cum  Syllogismis  tarn  categoricis  quam 
hypotheticis  (Ueberweg,  i  390). 

7  p.  507  stipra\  Prantl,  ii3  102  f. 

8  Prantl,  ii2  104  m  19,  and  206  f.  Ueberweg,  i  396. 

9  Poole,  169. 

10  i  Ep.  18,  84;  id.  134. 


XXVIII.]  BERNARD  OF  CHARTRES.  WILLIAM  OF  CONCHES.  5  1 1 


Bernard  of 
Chartres 


Venerable,  in  breaking  to  Heloissa  the  news  of  the  death  of 
Abelard,  charitably  describes  him  as  ‘  ever  to  be  named  with 
honour  as  the  servant  of  Christ  and  verily  Christ’s  philosopher’1. 
He  has  also  left  his  mark  on  the  history  of  European  education. 
The  great  popularity  of  the  lectures  given  in  Paris  by  this 
eloquent,  brilliant,  vain,  impulsive  and  self-confident  disputant, 
has  led  to  his  being  regarded  as  the  precursor  of  the  time  when 
Paris  became  the  School  of  Europe2. 

Bernard  of  Chartres  (d.  c.  1126),  William  of  Conches  (d.  1154) 
and  Adelard  of  Bath  ( fl .  1130)  held  a  Platonism 
modified  by  Christianity,  while  they  maintained  the 
authority  of  Aristotle  with  regard  to  our  knowledge 
of  the  world  of  sense.  ‘  In  comparison  with  the  ancients,  we  stand 
(says  Bernard,  of  himself  and  his  contemporaries)  like  dwarfs  on 
the  shoulders  of  giants  ’3.  Bernard,  ‘  the  most  perfect  Platonist  of 
his  age’4,  was  a  believer  in  the  essential  harmony  of  Plato  and 
Aristotle.  He  looked  on  learning  as  the  fruit  of  humble  and 
patient  research,  pursued  through  a  tranquil  life  of  poverty  and 
seclusion  from  public  affairs9.  The  fame  of  his  School  of  Classical 
Scholarship,  and  the  story  of  his  method,  still  live  in  the  pages 
of  John  of  Salisbury6.  Next  to  Bernard  of  Chartres, 
his  pupil  William  of  Conches  (d.  1154),  who  ^conche^ 
taught  at  Chartres  and  Paris,  is  regarded  by  John 
of  Salisbury  as  the  most  accomplished  scholar  of  his  time7.  He 
produced  a  commentary  on  the  Timaeus  of  Plato  and  on  the 
Consolatio  of  Boethius,  with  a  comprehensive  but  incomplete  work 


1  Poole,  166. 

2  On  Abelard,  cp.  (besides  Haureau  and  Ueberweg)  Remusat  (1845); 
Prantl,  ii2  162 — 205;  Milman,  Lat.  Christ,  iv  326—368;  Poole’s  Medieval 
Thought ,  136 — 176,  and  the  literature  there  quoted  (p.  137);  also  Compayre 
(1893),  J.  McCabe  (1901),  and  Rashdall’s  Universities ,  i  48 — 57. 

3  Quoted  by  John  of  Salisbury,  Met.  iii  4,  and  (without  name)  by  Peter  of 
Blois,  Ep.  92. 

4  Met.  iv  35. 

5  ‘  mens  humilis,  studium  quaerendi,  vita  quieta,  |  scrutinium  taciturn, 
paupertas,  terra  aliena,  |  haec  reserare  solent  multis  obscura  legendo  5 ;  quoted 
and  expounded  by  John  of  Salisbury,  Policraticus,  vii  13,  and  by  Hugo  of 
St  Victor  (d.  1 141). 

6  Met.  i  24;  Clerval,  ficoles  de  Chartres ,  158  f,  180  f,  248  f ;  infra  p.  519. 

7  ib.  i  5,  ‘grammaticus  opulentissimus’. 


/ 

512 


ADELARD.  GILBERT.  OTTO  OF  FREISING.  [CHAP. 


on  Philosophy ,  in  which  Galen  is  quoted,  while  words  borrowed 
from  Greek  are  not  rare1.  This  work  was  reduced  to  a  more 
orthodox  form  in  his  Dragmaticon,  where,  in  regard  to  his 
relations  towards  Plato,  he  says  of  himself,  ‘  Christianus  sum, 
non  Academicus ’2.  In  the  same  age  the  great 
AdB1aathd°f  traveller,  Adelard  of  Bath  (c.  1130),  visited  Spain, 
Greece,  Asia  Minor  and  Egypt.  He  was  the  first 
to  translate  Euclid  from  Arabic  into  Latin ;  he  also  endeavoured 
to  reconcile  the  opinions  of  Plato  and  Aristotle  on  the  question  of 
‘  universal  ’3.  A  contemporary  pupil  of  Bernard,  Gilbert  de  la 
Porree  (c.  1075 — 1154),  the  foremost  logician  among 
Gllporr4e  la  the  Realists  of  this  century,  was  the  author  of  a 
commentary  on  Boethius  De  Trinitate ,  and  of  a 
work  on  the  last  six  of  the  Categories  which  was  printed  in  the 
earliest  Latin  editions  of  Aristotle.  He  was  the  first  writer  after 
Boethius  and  Isidore,  who  was  recognised  in  the  Middle  Ages 
as  an  authority  on  Logic4.  He  cites  the  Analytics  as  already 
generally  known5.  His  pupil,  Otto  of  Freising 
(d.  1158),  was  one  of  the  first  to  introduce  into 
Germany  the  Topica,  Analytica  and  Sophistici 
Elenchi ,  possibly  in  the  translation  by  Boethius6;  but  he  is  far 
more  famous  as  the  faithful  counsellor  and  as  the  sagacious 
historian  of  the  earlier  exploits  of  his  distinguished  nephew, 
Frederic  Barbarossa7. 

Bernard  of  Chartres,  the  chancellor  of  1119  to  1126,  was 
succeeded  by  Gilbert  de  la  Porree,  who  held  that  office  from 
about  1126  to  1 14 1,  and  was  afterwards  bishop  of  Poitiers  from 
1142  to  his  death  in  1154.  In  the  breadth  of  his  intellectual 
interests,  and  in  his  power  of  bringing  all  of  them  to  bear  on 
any  subject  he  had  in  hand,  Gilbert  was  true  to  the  traditions  of 


Otto  of 
Freising 


1  Hist.  Litt.  de  la  France ,  xii  466. 

2  vi3o6;  Haureau,  i  43of;  Prantl,  ii2  127  f;  Poole,  124 — 131;  Clerval, 
181  f,  264  f. 

3  De  Eodem  et  Diverso  (c.  1105-16);  Haureau,  i  352  f;  Wiistenfeld, 
Gottingen  Abhandl.  1877,  pp.  20 — 23. 

4  Poole,  132-5;  179 — 200;  Berthaud  (Poitiers,  1892);  Clerval,  163!,  261  f. 

5  Liber  Sex  Principiorum,  ed.  1552  (Jourdain,  p.  29). 

6  Ragevinus,  Gesta  Frid.  iv  11,  Pertz,  Mon.  xx  451  (Prantl,  ii2  105,  229). 

7  Balzani’s  Chroniclers ,  249-56. 


XXVIII.] 


THEODORIC  OF  CHARTRES. 


51 


Bernard1.  His  successor  as  chancellor  was  Bernard’s  younger! 
brother  Theodoric,  who  was  appointed  in  1141  and 
died  c.  1 1 50-5.  He  is  known  as  the  author  of  the  Taiartres°f 
following  works: — (1)  a  philosophic  treatise  de  sex 
dierum  operibus,  being  an  attempt  to  reconcile  the  Biblical  account 
of  the  Creation  with  the  views  of  Plato  in  the  Timaeus 2 3 ;  (2)  a 
commentary  on  the  Ad  Herennium 3 ;  (3)  a  survey  of  the  Seven 
Liberal  Arts  in  two  vast  volumes  filling  in  all  1190  pages,  which 
he  bequeathed  to  the  Chapter  of  Chartres,  where  it  is  still  to  be 
seen  in  the  public  library 4.  In  this  work,  probably  written  about 
1141,  he  deals  (under  the  head  of  Dialectic )  with  all  the  treatises 
in  the  Organon  except  the  Later  Analytics,  and  is  among  the  first 
of  the  mediaeval  writers  to  attempt  to  popularise  their  contents 5.. 
John  of  Salisbury,  who  tells  us  that  he  attended  his  lectures  on 
Rhetoric 6  without  much  profit,  describes  him  as  artium  studio sis- 
simns  investigator 7 .  He  has  been  identified  as  the  keen  disputant 
mentioned  in  the  Metamorphosis  Goliae  (1141): — the  ‘doctor 
Carnotensis,  |  cujus  lingua  vehemens  truncat  velut  ensis’8.  In 
1144  Rodolphus  of  Bruges,  a  pupil  of  Theodoric,  and  of  Hermann 
the  Dalmatian  (one  of  the  early  translators  from  Arabic  into 
Latin),  sent  him  from  Toulouse  a  rendering  of  Ptolemy’s  Plani¬ 
sphere  with  a  flattering  dedication9;  and,  between  1145  and  1153, 
Bernard  Silvester  of  Tours  dedicated  his  celebrated  treatise  De 
Muruli  Universitate  to  Theodoric  in  the  following  terms : — - 

1  John  of  Salisbury,  Hist.  Pontificalis ,  xii  p.  526  (Poole,  121). 

2  Paris  ms  3584;  Haureau,  Notices  et  Extraits ,  xxii  (2)  167;  Clerval, 
L coles  de  Chartres,  254-9. 

3  Wattenbach  in  S.  Ber.  Bayr.  A  had.  1872,  p.  581  ;  P.  Thomas  in 
Melanges  Graux ,  42. 

4  Clerval,  P Enseignement  des  Arts  Liberaux  cl  Chartres  et  a  Paris...d'apres 
V Eptateuchon  de  Thierry  (1893),  and  Lcoles  (1895),  220 — 240.  First  identified 
in  1888  by  the  Abbe  Clerval,  who  showed  me  the  MS  at  Chartres  in  April, 
1903.  It  is  written  in  double  columns,  in  a  bold  and  clear  hand;  but  the 
Greek  words  (borrowed  from  Priscian)  are  somewhat  inaccurately  spelt. 

5  Clerval,  Lcoles ,  244  f. 

6  Met.  ii  10.  7  Met.  i  5. 

8  Metamorphosis  Goliae,  189  (p.  28  ed.  Wright) ;  Haureau,  Mem.  de  i Acad, 

des  Inscr.  xxviii  (2),  1876,  226. 

9  Wtistenfeld,  Gottingen  Abhandl.  1877,  52  ;  Clerval,  Lcoles,  171. 

S. 


33 


14 


BERNARD  SILVESTER  OF  TOURS. 


[CHAP. 


Terrico,  veris  scientiarum  titulis  Doctori  famosissimo,  Bernardus 
Silvestris  opus  suum  \  The  perusal  of  the  rest  of  the  dedication1 
is  hardly  needed  to  convince  us  that  Bernard  Silvester  is  not  the 
same  as  Bernard  of  Chartres,  the  brother  of  Theodoric.  Theodoric 
was  succeeded  as  chancellor  by  a  third  Bernard,  Bernard  of 
Moelan,  who,  like  the  brothers  Bernard  and  Theodoric  of 
Chartres,  was  of  Breton  birth,  and  ended  his  days  in  his  native 
land  as  bishop  of  Quimper  (1159 — 1167)2. 

Bernard  Silvester  (or  Silvestris)  is  definitely  connected  with 
Tours  in  the  following  couplet  written  by  his  pupil  Matthew 
of  Vendome  : — 


Bernard 
Silvester 
of  Tours 


‘me  docuit  dictare  decus  Turonense  magistri 
Silvestris,  studii  gemma,  scolaris  honor  ’ 3 * * *  ; 


and,  in  his  Poetria ,  the  same  pupil  quotes  as  in  libro  Cosmographiae 
Turonensis ,  a  couplet  which  is  found  in  the  De  Mundi  Uni- 
versitate  of  Bernard  Silvester,  the  date  of  which  is  determined  by 
its  reference  to  the  pontificate  of  another  Bernard,  Eugenius  III 
(1145-53).  Bernard  Silvester  is  described  as  follows  by  Henri 
d’Andely  in  the  Ba faille  des  Sept  Arts  (328  f) : — 


‘  Bernardin  li  Sauvages, 
Qui  connoissoit  toz  les  langages 
Des  esciences  et  des  arts 


1  Reprinted  from  Barach’s  text  by  Clerval,  220,  who  draws  no  inference 
from  the  terms  of  the  dedication.  The  tone  is  clearly  not  that  of  a  brother. 

2  Bernard  of  Chartres  was  formerly  identified  with  Bernard  Silvester  {Hist. 
Litt.  xii  261),  and  both  of  them  with  Bernard  of  Moelan,  bishop  of  Quimper 
(Haureau,  Comptes  Rendus,  Acad,  des  Inscr.  1873,  75,  and  Poole,  1x4  f ).  But 
it  has  since  been  made  clear  by  Clerval  {Lettres  Chretiennes,  v  393)  and 
admitted  by  Haureau  {Mem.  Acad.  Inscr.  xxxi  (2)  1884,  77 — io4)>  that  there 
were  three  different  persons  : — (1)  Bernard  of  Chartres  (d.  c.  1126-30);  (2)  B. 
Silvester  of  Tours  {Ji.  1 145-53);  and  (3)  B.  of  Moelan,  bp  of  Quimper 
(d.  1167).  C.  V.  Langlois,  Bibl.  de  Vecole  des  chartes ,  1893,  237-50,  still 
identifies  (1)  and  (2).  Haureau’s  date  for  the  death  of  (1),  ‘soon  after  1141  \  is 
corrected  by  Clerval,  Pcoles,  1895,  158  f. 

3  Haureau,  Mem.  1884,  99.  Bernard’s  Snmma  Dictaminum,  a  manual  of 

instruction  in  writing  Latin  letters,  was  composed  in  verse,  probably  at  Tours, 

in  or  after  1153.  It  was  abridged  in  prose  by  a  canon  of  Meung  (Langlois, 

l.  c.  225-37). 


XXVIII.] 


BERNARD  SILVESTER  OF  TOURS. 


51 


Bernard  was  a  scholar  of  a  musing,  meditative  type,  who,  in  hil 
two  short  books  On  the  Universe  (entitled  the  Megacostnus  and  the’ 
Microcosmus  respectively) 1  supplies  us  with  a  work  on  philosophical 
Mythology,  mainly  founded  on  the  Timaeus ,  and  written  in  a 
somewhat  pagan  spirit.  Like  the  Co?isolatio  of  Boethius,  it 
consists  of  prose  varied  with  verse.  The  prose,  is  concise  and 
obscure,  while  the  verse  is  vigorous,  and  is  suggestive  of  a  wide 
knowledge  of  the  classical  poets.  Most  of  the  nine  poems  are  in 
elegiacs,  and  only  one  in  hexameters.  Notwithstanding  an  able 
writer’s  opinion  that  the  model  of  the  author  of  these  poems  was 
Lucretius2,  they  supply  no  certain  proof  of  any  knowledge  of 
that  poet ;  the  rhythm  of  the  hexameters  is  clearly  that  of  Lucan, 
while  the  vocabulary  is  mainly  that  of  Ovid3.  The  work  was 
ranked  by  Eberhard  of  Bethune4  next  to  the  Consolatio  of 
Boethius  and  the  Satyricon  of  Martianus  Capella.  Its  author  is 
characterised  by  Gervase  of  Tilbury  as  egregius ,  both  as  a  ‘versifier  ’ 
and  as  a  ‘  philosopher  ’ 5.  Bernard  also  wrote  an  allegorical  com¬ 
mentary  on  the  first  half  of  the  Aeneid 6,  as  well  as  an  exposition 
of  the  Eclogues  of  Theodulus,  and  a  prose  and  verse  rendering  of 

1  De  Mundi  Universitate ,  ed.  Barach  and  Wrobel  (Innsbruck,  1876). 

2  Poole,  1 1 8,  219  n. 

3  My  opinion  is  confirmed  by  that  of  Mr  J.  D.  Duff,  who,  after  examining 
the  whole  work  at  my  request,  has  noted  reminiscences  of  Ovid,  Met.  i  85 
(p.  55,  1.  30)  and  Am.  i  5,  21  f  (p.  69, 1.  3) ;  also  of  Juvenal,  iii  203  f  (p.  16, 1. 41) 
and  v  23  (p.  17,  1.  68).  In  the  verse,  he  finds  no  certain  trace  of  Lucretius, 
but  he  notices  an  apparent  parallel  to  Lucr.  iii  19  fin  the  following  passage  of 
the  prose  (p.  36  f)  : — ‘Anastros  in  caelo  regio  est...indefecto  lumine,  serenitate 
perpetua...Ea  igitur...non  densatur  pluviis,  non  procellis  incutitur  nec  nubilo 
turbidatur’.  Here,  however,  I  have  no  doubt  that,  while  Anastros  comes  from 
Mart.  Capella,  viii  §  814,  the  rest  is  derived  from  Apuleius,  De  Mtcndo,  c.  33 
(translated  from  the  Pseudo-Aristotelian  De  Mundo,  c.  vi  p.  400) : — (’'OAiYnros) 

‘  neque  caliginem  nubium  recipit  vel  pruinas  et  nives  sustinet ;  nec  pulsatur 
ventis  nec  imbribus  caeditur  ’.  Then  follows  in  Apuleius,  as  in  ‘  Aristotle  ’,  a 
quotation  of  Homer,  Od.  vi  42-5,  the  original  source  of  Lucr.  iii  19  f. 

4  Lab.  iii  85  p.  830  Leyser. 

5  Otia  imp.  in  Leibnitz,  Scr.  Rer.  Brwisw.  (1707)  i  888,  975. 

6  Specimens  of  this,  and  the  Megacosmus  and  Microcosmus  in  Cousin, 
Frag.  Phil,  ii  265 — 291,  cp.  134 — 142,  ed.  1855  etc.  Cp.  Haureau,  i  407  f; 
Prantl,  ii  1262.  The  Megacosmus ,  c.  iii  11.  37 — 48,  is  imitated  by  Chaucer, 
Cant.  Tales,  4617. 


33—2 


16 


BERNARD  SILVESTER  OF  TOURS.  [CHAP.  XXVIII. 


.n  Arabic  treatise  on  astrology,  probably  translated  for  him  by 
Hermann  the  Dalmatian1.  A  treatise  on  the  astrolabe  in  the 
library  at  Chartres  is  dedicated  by  Hermann  to  one  B.,  who  is 
probably  Bernard  Silvester2,  sometimes  erroneously  identified  with 
his  earlier  contemporary  Bernard  of  Chartres. 

1  E x peri  mentar  ins  Bernardi ,  sive  Bernard  ini,  Silvestris ;  Bodl.  MSS,  Digby 
4 6  and  Ashmole  304  (Langlois,  /.  c.  248  f ).  On  examining  the  Pepys  MS  91 1, 
De  Virtute  Planetarum .  in  Magdalene  Coll.,  Cambridge,  I  find  that  this  is 
another  copy  of  the  Experimentarius . 

2  Clerval,  Hermann  le  Dalmate,  1891,  p.  11. 


CVo)  pmtnn  aMdbens  a&md&u 
fhtdumim  cattfrirngtafTcm  m 
gatuas  anno  atrb  pqttamtUidfs  wp 
attglomm  lrnmais  lea  raftiae  retype,/ 
/  ceflir  bmnattia.'&matlt/  me-  t ' 

/ixann  patatmmn  tjutmnc-m  monte 
fif ^nouefodarus  hocroiiaintmabi ' 
/Its  otntufy  pftdetan.jin  aDptbes  tins 
pm&  arm  imttisniBtttka  accept  .qp 
modulo  / 

luraboie  misuocutmts  arahttaob 
mtptebam.fteth  p  dtfaf&tm  eras  cpti 
m  fpropns  tttftis  magiftro 


From  the  ms  of  John  of  Salisbury’s  Metalogicus  etc. 
in  the  Library  of  Corpus  Christi  College,  Cambridge.  This 
copy  once  belonged  to  Becket,  Sancti  Thome  archiepiscopi 
having  been  erased  on  the  flyleaf  (see  M.  R.  James,  quoted 
on  p.  518  n.  3  infra).  In  the  above  extract  from  Met.  ii  10, 
the  Leo  Jtistitiae  is  Henry  I  (d.  1135),  and  the  Peripateticus 
Palatinus,  Abelard  (b.  at  Palatium,  Le  Pallet,  near  Nantes). 


c 


THE  TWEL 

The  narrow  scholas 
John  of  Salisbury  (n 
to  Paris,  where  he  atte 
Logic,  as  well  as  those 
Alberic  of  Rheims  and 
Hereford).  Both  of 
tinguished  themselves 
the  great  foundation 
of  the  ancients  ’  *.  After 
he  studied  *  Grammar 
celebrated  ‘grammarian 
also  studied  the  Quadri 
Theology  under  Gilbert 
to  Paris  for  a  course 
subjects  of  mediaeval 
very  different  to  the  mechai 
century4.  After  spending 
to  England,  became 
Canterbury,  Theobald 
sent  to  France  and  Italy 
the  central  figure  of  Englis 

1  Met.  ii  io  (cxcix  867 

a  The  place  has  been 
p.  22. 

3  Among  his  other  teachers 
German,  Petrus  Elias  and 

4  Rashdall,  i  64. 

6  Stubbs,  Lectures ,  Lect 


[CHAP. 


V 


ncipal  works  are  his 
his  Policraticus 1  (with 
the  same  name  as  his 
:2.  The  Policraticus 
Both  of  them  were 
led  by  his  chancellor, 
ise.  In  the  Policraticus , 
edia  of  the  cultivated 
tury’4,  we  have  an  in¬ 
ti  rical  account  of  the 
len  the  writer  went  to 
Schoolmen  busy  with 
new  opinion  on  genera 
which  they  had  been 
of  Aristotle6.  The 
ndantly  illustrated  in  his 
of  ‘Grammar’,  or  a 
while,  in  defending  an 
it  is  useless  in  itself, 
the  other  arts8.  He 
arguments  against  the 
own,  and  regards  him 
meets  the  attacks  of  a 
the  opponent  of  Virgil 
poet),  and,  under  the 

hilosophorum  (vii,  viii). 

printed  until  1868  (Mon.  xx 

among  the  Parker  MSS  at 
James,  A  bp  Parker's  MSS, 


sic  si  sola  fuerit,  jacet  ex- 
cum  adjunctarum  virtute 


XXIX.] 


THE  SCHOOL  OF  CHARTRES. 


519 


title  of  Cornificiani,  satirises  the  narrow-minded  specialists  in 
Logic  who  despised  literature,  and  describes  by  way  of  contrast 
the  system  of  literary  instruction  which  prevailed  in 
the  School  of  Chartres.  Early  in  the  eleventh  0f^haftres01 
century  the  cathedral  school  of  that  city  had  been 
famous  under  Fulbert  (d.  1029),  as  a  home  of  sacred  learning; 
and  learning  continued  to  be  represented  there  in  the  person  of 
Lanfranc’s  pupil,  the  great  lawyer,  bishop  Ivo  (d.  1115).  Soon 
after  the  death  of  Ivo  the  School  rose  once  more  into  fame  under 
Bernard  (1119-26)  and  his  brother  Theodoric  (1141  f),  canons 
and  chancellors  of  Chartres.  In  John  of  Salisbury’s  day  (1138), 
William  of  Conches  and  Richard  l’Eveque  continued  to  perpetuate 
the  teaching  of  Bernard,  and  thus  carried  on  a  sound  and 
healthy  tradition  \  In  that  School  the  study  of  ‘  figures  of  speech  ’ 
was  treated  as  merely  introductory  to  that  of  the  classical  texts, 
which  were  explained  not  only  on  grammatical  but  also  on  general 
principles,  the  different  excellences  of  prose  and  verse  being 
pointed  out,  and  emphasis  laid  on  the  sense  as  well  as  the  style 
of  the  author  studied.  The  pupils  wrote  daily  exercises  in  prose 
and  verse,  founded  on  the  best  models  only1 2,  and  corrected  one 
another’s  compositions,  besides  learning  passages  by  heart  and 
holding  discussions  on  a  set  subject.  The  general  method  of  the 
School  was  founded  on  the  scheme  of  education  laid  down  by 
Quintilian 3. 

John  of  Salisbury,  the  ripest  product  of  this  School,  stands 
out  as  the  most  learned  man  of  his  time.  He  gives  an  analysis  of 
the  whole  series  of  Aristotle’s  treatises  on  Logic4.  His  Meta- 
logicus  (1159)  is,  in  fact,  the  first  work  of  the  Middle  Ages,  in 
which  the  whole  of  the  Organon  is  turned  to  account5,  and 
Aristotle’s  own  criticisms  on  Plato’s  doctrine  of  Ideas  applied  to 

1  Bernard  belongs  to  a  former  generation,  having  probably  died  before 
1130;  Met.  i  24,  Sequebatur  hunc  morem  Bernardus  Carnotensis... Ad  hujus 
magistri  formam  praeceptores  mei  etc.  ;  Pol.  vii  13  senex  Carnotensis. 

2  Met.  i  24,  ea  sufficere  quae  a  Claris  auctoribus  scripta  sunt. 

3  Met.  1.  c. ;  cp.  Schaarschmidt,  65  f,  73!,  8-2  f ;  Norden,  Kunstprosa , 
715 — 9;  Poole,  113 — 124;  Rashdall,  i  65  f;  Clerval,  223 — 232. 

4  Alet.  iii — iv. 

5  The  same  ground  is  apparently  traversed  less  completely  in  the  Eptateuchon 
of  Theodoric  ( c .  1141),  where  the  Later  Analytics  is  omitted  ;  p.  513  supra. 


520 


JOHN  OF  SALISBURY. 


[CHAP. 


the  scholastic  controversy  on  universals1.  He  is  familiar  not  only 
with  the  Boethian  translations  but  also  with  certain  new  render¬ 
ings2.  He  laments  the  obscurity  of  the  translation  of  the  Later 
Analytics3,  and  the  long  neglect  of  the  Topics 4.  He  has  studied 
certain  parts  of  the  Organon  with  a  learned  Greek5  (possibly 
during  his  stay  of  three  months  with  Hadrian  IV  at  Beneventum6); 
but  he  never  professes  to  have  read  any  Greek  work  without  such 
assistance;  he  derives  Analytica  from  ava  and  Ae£is7;  and  he 
never  quotes  from  any  Greek  author  unless  that  author  exists  in  a 
Latin  translation.  In  the  Metalogicus  he  mentions  Boethius  as 
often  as  Aristotle,  and  borrows  from  Boethius  the  explanations  of 
all  the  Greek  terms  of  Grammar  or  Logic  that  he  uses8.  He 
asks  his  former  teacher,  Richard  ‘  l’Eveque  now  archdeacon  of 
Coutances,  for  transcripts  of  any  of  Aristotle’s  works  (to  be 
executed  at  his  own  expense),  and  for  explanations  of  difficult 
passages9;  and  his  correspondence  with  John  the  Saracen  shows 
that  he  was  ignorant  of  Greek 10.  And  yet,  though  he  is  opposed 
to  Plato’s  teaching,  and  is  only  acquainted  with  the  incomplete 
translation  of  the  Timaeus  by  Chalcidius  and  a  few  traditional 
passages  from  the  Republic,  he  is  so  conscious  of  Plato’s  greatness 
as  to  declare  that,  on  the  day  when  Plato,  the  first  of  philosophers, 
passed  away,  it  seemed  as  though  the  sun  itself  had  vanished 
from  the  heavens11.  He  repeatedly  supports  the  Scriptures  by 
citations  from  Latin  authors,  but  he  warns  us  not  to  allow 
authority  (as  represented  by  the  Classics)  to  do  prejudice  to 
reason  (or  the  mental  faculty  enlightened  by  Christianity)12.  He 
praises  the  method  of  instruction  pursued  (as  we  have  seen)  by 
Bernard  of  Chartres,  whom  he  describes  as  £  in  modern  times,  the 

1  Met.  ii  20. 

2  Ep.  2 1 1  and  Met.  ii  20  (the  nova  translatio  has  the  more  literal  cicadationes 
instead  of  monstra  in  the  rendering  of  TepeTioixara  in  Anal.  Post,  i  22,  4).  See 
also  Prantl,  ii2  108  n.  34,  and  Rose  in  Hermes ,  i  383. 

3  Met.  iv  6.  4  Met.  iii  5 ;  Prantl,  ii2  106. 

5  Met.  i  15  ;  iii  5  ;  p.  508  n.  r  supra.  6  Pol.  vi  24. 

7  Met.  iv  2 ;  Analetica  in  text,  and  Analectica  in  summary,  of  Corpus  MS. 

8  Jourdain,  Recherches,  254  f;  cp.  Schaarschmidt,  113. 

9  Ep.  21 1  (Schaarschmidt,  264). 

10  Epp.  149,  169. 

12  Pol.  vii  10  (Poole,  219). 


11  Pol.  vii  6  (init. ) ;  Haureau,  i  540. 


XXIX.] 


HIS  CLASSICAL  LEARNING. 


521 


most  abounding  spring  of  letters  in  Gaul’1.  That  method  began 
with  Donatus  and  Priscian,  and  included  Cicero  and  Quintilian, 
and  the  poets  and  historians  of  Rome.  He  himself  quotes,  in 
varying  degrees  of  frequency,  poets  such  as  Terence,  Virgil, 
Horace,  Ovid,  Lucan,  Statius,  Persius,  Martial,  Juvenal  and 
Claudian,  as  well  as  the  apocryphal  play  called  the  Querolus 2, 

9 

but  he  knows  nothing  of  the  genuine  plays  of  Plautus,  or  of 
Lucretius ;  and  he  cites  Catullus  only  once3.  He  quotes  the 
historians  Sallust,  Suetonius,  Justin  and  Valerius  Maximus,  but 
he  makes  the  strange  mistake  of  implying  that  Suetonius  and 
Tranquillus  were  two  different  persons4.  He  has  only  one  refer¬ 
ence  to  Livy5 ;  Caesar  and  Tacitus  he  knows  by  name  alone,  but 
he  is  familiar  with  Seneca  and  Petronius,  Quintilian  and  the  elder 
Pliny,  and  he  even  quotes  the  younger  Pliny’s  Panegyric6.  He 
owes  much  of  his  classical  lore  to  Gellius  and  Macrobius  and 
the  Latin  Grammarians,  and  he  has  an  extensive  knowledge  of 
Apuleius.  But  his  favourite  Latin  author  is  Cicero.  Though  he 
only  quotes  the  Speeches  once7,  he  knows  the  Epistolae  ad  Fa- 
miliares,  and  is  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the  philosophical 
works.  He  is  supposed  to  have  possessed  the  De  Republica* ,  but 
all  his  references  to  that  lost  work  are  to  passages  already  quoted 
by  St  Augustine.  He  says  of  Cicero :  orbis  nil  habuit  mains 
Cicerone  Latinus 9,  and  the  purity  of  his  own  Latin  prose  has 
justly  been  praised  by  modern  critics10.  Among  the  mss  that  he 
bequeathed  to  the  Library  at  Chartres  were  the  De  Officiis  and 
De  Oratore  of  Cicero,  and  the  Quaestiones  Naturales  of  Seneca11. 
The  only  Latin  work  known  to  him,  which  has  since  been  lost, 
is  that  of  an  interlocutor  in  Macrobius, — Virius  Nicomachus 

1  Met.  i  24. 

2  Probably  written  in  Gaul  in  cent,  iv — v;  Teuffel,  §  421®;  Schaarschmidt, 
101 ;  Norden’s  Kunstprosa,  630. 

3  xiv  9  in  Met.  i  24. 

4  Pol.  viii  18  ad  fin. 

5  Pol.  iii  10,  scriptor  belli  Punici. 

6  Pol.  iii  14,  ‘  Caecilius  Balbus ’. 

7  Pol.  viii  7  (i pro  Ligario ,  12).  8  Heeren,  i  251. 

9  Enth.  1215. 

10  Ap.  Hallam  Lit.  i  74“*;  cp.  Poole,  123;  Rashdall,  i  67. 

11  Migne,  cxcix  col.  xii. 


522 


PETER  OF  BLOIS. 


[CHAP. 


Peter  of 
Blois 


Flavianus  (d.  394),  de  vestigiis  sive  dogmate  philosophorum,  and 
he  borrows  the  first  part  of  this  description  in  the  full  title  of  his 
Policraticus,  and  the  second  in  that  of  his  Entheticus \  In  all  the 
Latin  literature  that  was  accessible  to  him,  he  is  obviously  the 
best-read  scholar  of  his  age1 2. 

Peter  of  Blois  (c.  11 35-1 204),  who  settled  in  England  about 
1173  as  secretary  to  the  archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
and  became  archdeacon  of  Bath  and  London,  and 
secretary  to  Henry  II,  urges  the  importance  of  a 
literary  training  for  a  future  king  and  assures  the  archbishop  of 
Palermo  that  ‘  with  the  king  of  England  there  is  school  every  day, 
constant  conversation  of  the  best  scholars  ’3.  In  the  243  letters 
written  by  him  for  Henry  II,  it  is  quite  exceptional  to  find  one 
which  contains  no  quotations  from  the  Classics.  Besides  the 
poets,  he  quotes  Cicero  (with  the  exception  of  the  Speeches\ 
Sallust,  Livy,  Curtius,  Seneca’s  Letters ,  Quintilian,  Tacitus  and 
Suetonius.  His  Latin  prose  is  more  ambitious  than  that  of  the 
other  writers  of  the  twelfth  century4 5. 

His  younger  contemporary,  the  keen  and  active  Norman- 
Welshman,  Giraldus  Cambrensis  (1147 — c.  1222), 
born  at  Manorbeer  Castle  in  Pembrokeshire, 
studied  from  time  to  time  in  Paris  until  1180, 
attended  Prince  John  on  his  expedition  to  Ireland  in  1185,  and 
described  its  conquest  by  Henry  II  in  a  historical  work,  in  which 
he  aims  at  a  style  that  is  simple  and  easy,  and  absolutely  free  from 
all  pedantry.  ‘  Is  it  not  better  (as  Seneca  says)  to  be  dumb  than 
to  speak  so  as  not  to  be  understood?55  To  the  Irish  chiefs 
he  here  assigns  Greek  patronymics,  and  makes  them  deliver  set 
speeches  garnished  with  quotations  from  Caesar  and  Ovid.  He 


Giraldus 

Cambrensis 


1  Schaarschmidt,  103 — 7. 

2  Stubbs,  Lectures ,  Lect.  vii,  1531.  Cp.,  in  general,  Schaarschmidt  in 
Rheinisches  Museum  xix  (1859)  200  and  esp.  Johannes  Saresberiensis,  nach 
Leben  u.  Studien,  Schriften  u.  Philosophie  (1862)  ;  Jourdain,  Recherches  247  — 
256;  Prantl,  Logik,  ii2  234 — 260;  Haureau,  i  533  f;  R.  L.  Poole,  Medieval 
Thought,  201 — 225;  and  the  literature  quoted  in  these  works. 

3  Stubbs,  Lectures,  1191. 

4  Opera  in  Migne,  ccvii ;  cp.  Norden,  717-9,  and  Clerval,  Lcoles  de 
Chartres ,  293  f. 

5  Vol.  v  208  (in  Rolls  Series);  H.  Morley,  English  Writers,  iii  76. 


XXIX.] 


GIRALDUS  CAMBRENSIS. 


523 


also  wrote  works  of  the  highest  interest  on  the  topography  of 
Ireland  and  Wales1,  reviving  an  ancient  classical  custom  by 
reciting  the  first  of  these  during  three  memorable  days  of  public 
entertainment  at  Oxford  (1187)2.  He  was  an  ardent  reformer  of 
ecclesiastical  abuses  in  his  native  land,  and  his  great  disappoint¬ 
ment  in  life  was  that  he  never  became  (like  his  uncle)  bishop  of 
St  David’s.  But  his  studies  were  never  intermitted3,  and  he 
dwells  with  special  interest  on  a  description  of  his  book-case4. 
His  later  writings  teem  with  classical  quotations.  In  his  work  De 
Principis  Instructions  (finished  about  1217),  with  the  exception  of 
Lucretius  and  Tacitus,  there  is  hardly  any  notable  author  between 
Terence  and  Boethius  whom  he  does  not  cite.  In  the  preface  he 
gives  us  extracts  from  Cicero  and  Pliny  in  praise  of  a  quiet  and 
studious  life5 ;  while,  in  the  body  of  the  book,  he  illustrates  the 
virtue  of  patience  by  nine  quotations6,  and  the  modesty  of  princes 
by  seventeen7.  In  the  prologue  to  one  of  his  latest  works,  the 
Speculum  Ecclesiae  (c.  1220),  he  speaks  of  the  neglect  of  the  Latin 
poets  and  philosophers,  which  had  led  to  barbarism  of  style  and 
to  ignorance  of  prosody8.  He  also  regrets  the  recent  importation 
from  Toledo  of  certain  logical  and  physical  treatises  attributed  to 
Aristotle,  which  he  describes  as  having  been  lately  prohibited  in 
France  on  the  ground  of  their  heretical  tendency9.  The  anecdotes 
in  his  Gemma  Ecclesiastica  illustrate  the  ignorance  of  Latin  which 
prevailed  among  the  clergy  in  Wales10. 

The  Latin  prose  of  the  twelfth  century  is  grammatically 
correct,  and,  even  in  the  next  two  centuries,  it 

...  Latin  Prose 

has  not  ceased  to  be  a  living  language.  In  fact, 
during  the  Middle  Ages  in  general,  Latin  prose  never  dies  out11. 
Among  natives  of  England  alone,  the  writers  of  historical  prose 
include  Florence  of  Worcester  (d.  1118),  Ordericus  Vitalis,  born 
near  Wroxeter  to  become  at  Saint-6vroult  the  ecclesiastical 

I  Vol.  v  and  vi.  2  i  410.  3  iii  336. 

4  i  369.  5  viii  p.  lxiii.  6  ib.  17. 

7  ib.  47  f.  8  iv  3,  7  f  (note). 

9  iv  9  f.  See  p.  539  infra. 

10  On  Giraldus,  cp.  H.  Morley,  iii  64 — 82 ;  Hardy,  Descr.  Cat.  (in 
Rolls  Series),  11  xxxii,  and  the  Prefaces  to  his  works  by  Brewer  (vol.  iv)  and 
G.  F.  Warner  (vol.  viii),  in  the  same  Series. 

II  Stubbs,  Lectures ,  Lect.  vii,  152 — 51 ;  Norden,  Kunstprosa ,  748-63. 


524 


LATIN  PROSE. 


[CHAP. 


historian  of  England  and  Normandy,  and  to  die  in  the  same  year 
as  William  of  Malmesbury  (c.  1142) ;  also  Geoffrey  of  Monmouth 
(d.  1154),  Henry  of  Huntingdon  (d.  c.  1155),  William  of  Newburgh 
(d.  c.  1198),  Roger  of  Hoveden  and  Ralph  de  Diceto  (d.  c.  1201), 
Gervase  of  Tilbury  (Jt.  1211),  Matthew  Paris  (d.  1259)  and  Ralph 
Higden  (d.  1364) l.  An  unnamed  Englishman  was  probably  the 
first  collector  of  the  Gesta  Romanorum ,  with  its  many  citations 
from  Ovid,  Seneca,  Pliny,  Valerius  Maximus,  Macrobius,  Gellius 
and  Boethius;  the  earliest  ms  belongs  to  13262. 

Meanwhile,  in  Italy,  Latin  verse  had  been  successfully  applied 
to  historic  themes  by  William  of  Apulia,  a  native  of 
France  who  imitated  Virgil  in  composing  (between 
1099  and  mi)  his  epic  poem  on  the  Norman 
conquest  of  Southern  Italy  and  the  victorious  career 
of  Robert  Guiscard  (d.  1085)3;  and  by  other  poets 
of  Como,  Bergamo,  Pisa,  Eboli  and  Parma  between  1088  and 
12474.  The  Tale  of  Troy  was  the  theme  of  Guido 
delle  Colonne  of  Messina  (end  of  cent.  xm)5 6.  The 
moralising  type  of  verse,  which  was  so  dear  to  the  Middle  Ages, 
had,  in  the  meantime,  been  represented  in  Italy  by 
Henricus  Septimellensis  (fl.  1191),  who  imitates 
Boethius  in  his  allegorical  poem  De  diversitate 
Fortunae  et  Philosophiae  consolatione <!,  and  by  Henricus  Medio- 
lanensis  who  dedicates  to  Clement  IV  (1265-8)  his  Controversia 
Hominis  et  Fortunae 7. 

In  the  twelfth  century  England  claims  at  least  seven  Latin 
poets.  Serlo  Grammaticus,  canon  of  York  and  abbot  of  Fountains 
iyfl.  1160),  wrote  a  poem  in  70  accentual  trochaic  lines  ‘on  the  war 


Latin  Verse 
in  centuries 
xii,  xiii 

William  of 
Apulia 


(Guido) 


Henry  of 
Septimello, 
and  of  Milan 


1  H.  Morley,  iii,  and  the  Prefaces  to  the  editions  in  the  Rolls  Series,  with 

Sir  Thomas  Hardy’s  Descriptive  Catalogue ,  and  Gardiner  and  Mullinger’s 
Introductioti  to  English  History,  239 — 273,  285.  2  H.  Morley,  iii  367!. 

3  Text  in  Muratori,  Scr.  Rer.  Jtal.  v.245 — 278  ;  extracts  in  Gibbon  c.  56 
(vi  176 — 208,  522  Bury). 

4  Wiese  u.  Percopo,  It.  Litt.  (1899),  7  f. 

r’  An  epic  in  Latin  prose ,  plagiarised  from  the  French  poem  of  Benoit  de 
Sainte-More  (1165).  Cp.  Bartoli,  Precursori  del  Rinascimento,  85.  Chaucer’s 
‘debt  to  Guido’  has  been  discussed  anew  by  Prof.  G.  L.  Hamilton  (1903). 

6  ed.  Leyser,  Hist.  Poetarum  Medii  Aevi  (1741),  453  f ;  Migne,  cciv. 

7  ed.  Popma  (Cologne,  1570). 


XXIX.] 


LATIN  VERSE. 


525 


between  the  king  of  Scotland  and  the  barons  of  England’  (1138)1. 
Nigellus  Wirecker  of  Canterbury  (d.  1200)  is  known 

,  .  r  \  \  .  Serlo. 

as  the  witty  author  of  a  long  elegiac  poem  on  the  Nigeiius. 
adventures  of  the  donkey  ‘Burnellus’,  the  typical  Hautevme 
monk,  who  spends  some  time  at  the  university  of 
Paris2.  Jean  de  Hauteville  (fl.  1184),  who  was  born  near  Rouen 
and  passed  part  of  his  life  in  England,  being  sometimes  called  a 
Norman  monk  of  St  Albans,  was  the  composer  of  a  poem  in  nine 
books  on  the  miseries  of  humanity,  ‘a  learned,  ingenious  and  very 
entertaining  performance’3,  describing  modern  students  living  a 
hard  life  in  Paris  and  ancient  philosophers  declaiming  in  distant 
Thule  against  the  vices  of  mankind4.  Far  better  known  is  Walter 
Map,  the  versatile  archdeacon  of  Oxford  (in  1196), 
the  author  of  the  Latin  version  of  the  legends  of 
Lancelot  of  the  Lake,  the  Quest  of  the  Holy  Grail  and  the  Death 
of  Arthur,  and  also  of  the  celebrated  satirical  poems  called  the 
Apocalypse  and  the  Confession  of  bishop  Golias5.  The  following 
lines,  naming  several  of  the  leading  teachers  of  the  age,  may  be 
quoted  as  a  specimen  of  his  Latin  rhymes  :  — 


Walter  Map 


‘  Celebrem  theologum  vidimus  Lumbardum ; 
Cum  Ivone,  Helyam  Petrum,  et  Bernardum, 
Quorum  opobalsamum  spirat  os  et  nardum  ; 
Et  professi  plurimi  sunt  Abaielardum  ’6. 


Walter  Map’s  satirical  poems  are  the  comparatively  innocent 
counterpart  of  the  Latin  rhymes  of  the  wandering  students  of 
Western  Europe  known  from  1227  onwards  by  the  name  of 


1  Battle  of  the  Standard ;  MS  in  Library  of  C.  C.  C.,  Cambridge  ;  cp. 
Leyser,  427  f ;  ed.  Twysden  in  Decern  Scriptores ,  i  331 ;  his  date  is  1109-1207  ?. 

2  Anglo-Latin  Satirical  Poets ,  i  1 1 — 145,  ed.  T.  Wright  (1872) ;  cp.  Chaucer, 
Cant.  Tales  15318;  and  H.  Morley,  English  Writers ,  iii  175. 

3  Warton,  Eng.  Poet .,  Diss.  11  cliv  (1824). 

4  Johannis  de  Altavilla  Architrenius ,  ed.  T.  Wright,  /.  c.,  i  pp.  xxvf, 

240 — 392  ;  cp.  Wright’s  Hist,  of  Caricature,  160.  % 

5  ed.  T.  Wright  (1841)  ;  Hardy,  Descr.  Cat.  II  xxxv;  H.  Morley,  iii 
120 — 144,  166 — 174.  The  Apocalypse  includes  a  curious  passage  on  the  Seven 
Arts  (ib.  168).  It  is  first  ascribed  to  Map  in  a  Bodl.  MS  of  cent,  xiv,  ‘  Apoca- 
lipsis  Magistri  Galteri  Mahap’. 

3  p.  28  Wright,  Metamorphosis  Goliae ;  discussed  in  Mem.  Acad.  Inscr. 
xxviii  (2)  by  Haureau,  who  regards  the  authorship  as  doubtful ;  the  dramatic 
date  of  the  poem  is  1141. 


526  JOSEPH  OF  EXETER.  GEOFFREY  DE  VINSAUF.  [CHAP. 


Joseph  of 
Exeter 


Geoffrey  de 
Vinsauf 


GoliardP,  who  sing  of  love  and  wine  and  the  joys  of  springtime, 
and  indulge  in  profane  parodies  and  in  bitter  satire  of  all  classes 
secular  or  sacred2.  Joseph  of  Exeter  (d.  c.  1210),  a 
brother  of  Theobald,  archbishop  of  Canterbury,  is 
the  only  Latin  epic  poet  claimed  by  England.  He  is 
described  as  ‘a  miracle  of  this  age  in  classical  composition ,3.  He 
produced  (with  the  aid  of  Dares,  and  in  the  style  of  Ovid,  Statius 
and  Claudian)  a  poem  De  Bello  Trojano,  which  is  still  extant,  while 
his  Antiocheis  on  the  exploits  of  Richard  I  is  now  represented  by 
a  solitary  fragment  of  twelve  lines  on  Flos  Regum  Art  hums*.  One 
of  the  best  known  Latin  poets  of  the  time,  Geoffrey 
de  Vinsauf  ( Galfridus  de  Vino  Salvo),  educated  at 
St  Frideswide’s,  Oxford,  and  in  the  universities  of 
France  and  Italy,  dedicated  to  Innocent  III  (d.  1216)  his  Poetria 
Nova ,  an  Art  of  Poetry  in  more  than  2000  lines  founded  partially 
on  that  of  Horace  and  recommending  the  use  of  the  ancient 
metres  instead  of  the  modern  ‘  Leonines  ’  and  rhyming  verses, 
with  examples  of  various  kinds  of  poetic  composi¬ 
tion5.  Alexander  Neckam  (1157-1217),  born  at 
St  Albans,  distinguished  himself  in  Paris  in  1180 
and  was  abbot  of  Circencester  in  12 13-7 6.  He  wrote  in  prose  as 
well  as  in  verse.  In  the  course  of  his  amusing  treatise  De  Naturis 
Rerum,  with  its  many  anecdotes  of  animals,  he  borrows  much 
from  Aristotle,  Pliny,  Solinus  and  Cassiodorus,  and  also  quotes 
Virgil,  Horace,  Ovid,  Lucan,  Juvenal,  Martial  and  Claudian.  In 
a  long  chapter  on  the  Seven  Arts  he  shows  grave  mistrust  of 
scholastic  learning,  and  attacks  the  teaching  of  Logic  in  the 


Alexander 

Neckam 


1  Wright’s  Hist,  of  Caricature,  etc.,  162 — 73;  J.  Grimm,  Gedichte  des  Mil- 
lelalters  (1844);  Carmina  Biirana  (from  Benedictbeuern,  S.  of  Munich),  (1847; 
ed.  2,  Schmeller,  1883);  Hubatsch,  Vagantenlieder  (1870);  translations  in 
J.  A.  Symonds,  Wine ,  Wo7nen  and  Song 

2  Burckhardt’s  Renaissance,  Part  ill  c.  1,  p.  173  f,  Eng.  ed.  J898,  and 
Bartoli’s  Precursori ,  35 — 72.  Cp.  Wattenbach,  Geschichtsquellen,  ii6  472-6. 

3  Warton,  /.  c.,  p.  clxii. 

4  Quoted  in  Camden’s  Britannia,  end  of  notes  to  Book  iii ;  cp.  H.  Morley, 
iii  183. 

5  Leyser,  862 — 978;  cp.  Warton,  l.  c.,  p.  clxxi ;  Tyrwhitt  on  Chaucer, 
Cant.  Tales  15353;  H.  Morley,  iii  189;  K.  Francke,  Lat.  Schulpoesie  (Mtinchen, 
1879);  Saintsbury,  i  412  f. 

6  Ii.  Morley,  iii  196;  cp.  Warton,/.  c.,  p.  clx. 


XXIX.] 


ALEXANDER  NECKAM. 


527 


university  of  Paris1,  which  he  describes  as  the  home  of  Theology 
and  the  Arts2.  His  vast  elegiac  poem  De  Laudibus  Divinae 
Sapientiae  traverses  much  of  the  same  ground.  It  also  describes 
the  chief  seats  of  learning  in  his  day,  summing  up  in  a  single 
couplet  the  four  faculties  of  Arts,  Theology,  Law  and  Medicine 
recognised  in  the  university  of  Paris,  the  ‘  paradisus  delici- 
arum 5 : — 

‘  hie  florent  artes ;  coelestis  pagina  regnat ; 
stant  leges;  lucet  jus;  medicina  viget’3. 

His  Latin  fables,  which  have  been  printed4,  are  praised  for  their 
vigorous  style5.  His  lexicographical  works,  entitled  Vocabulciriiim 
biblicum  and  Repertorium  voccibulonim,  remain  unpublished.  In 
the  De  uiensilibus  (ed.  Scheler,  1867)  the  Latin  names  of  different 
articles  are  taught  by  means  of  a  connected  narrative  with  inter¬ 
linear  glosses  in  French.  The  author’s  own  name,  which  was 
apparently  pronounced  like  nequam ,  was  the  theme  of  repeated 
pleasantries.  Once,  when  he  played  on  the  name  of  Phi-lippus 
(abbot  of  Leicester),  the  latter  retorted  with  the  couplet : 

‘  Es  niger  et  nequam  dictus  cognomine  Necham : 

Nigrior  esse  potes,  nequior  esse  nequis’6. 

Joannes  de  Garlandia,  who  studied  at  Oxford  and  Paris  (1204), 

was  an  Englishman  by  birth,  but  regarded  France 

as  the  land  of  his  adoption7.  He  was  present  at  Garlandia  de 

the  siege  of  Toulouse  (1218),  where  he  saw  the 

catapult  by  which  Simon  de  Montfort  (the  elder)  was  then  slain8. 

He  also  assisted  at  the  founding  of  the  university  (1229).  In  the 

1  c.  173  p.  283,  ed.  T.  Wright  in  Rolls  Series  (1863). 

2  c.  174  p.  311. 

3  p.  453.  His  elegiac  poem  De  Vita  Monachoru?n  is  printed  in  another 
vol.  of  the  Rolls  Series, — Anglo- Latin  Satirical  Poets,  ii  175 — 200.  Aristotle 
there  appears  as  a  logician  alone  (p.  193). 

4  Du  Meril,  Poesies  Inedites  du  Moyen  Age  (1854). 

5  Bernhardy,  Rom.  Litt.  672®. 

6  Leland’s  Itinerary  (1744)  vi  48  (  =  54),  quoted  by  J.  E.  B.  Mayor, 
Journ.  of  Cl.  and  S.  Philol.,  iv  10. 

7  De  Triumphis  Ecclesiae,  p.  59  (ed.  T.  Wright,  Roxburghe  Club,  1856), 
Anglia  cui  mater  fuerat,  cui  Gallia  nutrix,  Matri  nutricem  praefero  Marte 
meam. 

8  Gonv.  and  Caius  ms  385  (605),  MS  of  Dictionarius,  §  47  p.  146  v. 


528 


JOANNES  DE  GARLANDIA. 


[CHAP. 


course  of  one  of  his  two  principal  poems,  De  Mysteriis  Ecclesiae *, 
he  commemorated  the  death  of  Alexander  of  Hales  (1245);  he 
completed  the  other,  De  Triumphis  Ecclesiae  (on  the  crusade 
against  the  Albigenses),  before  1252.  The  language  of  the  latter 
abounds  in  grammatical  conceits  and  fantastic  devices  of  metre. 
The  metrical  models  here  named  are  Virgil,  Ovid,  Statius,  Lucan2; 
and  the  following  is  a  favourable  specimen  of  its  style  : — 

‘  Est  caeli  sine  nocte  dies,  plausus  sine  planctu, 

Absque  fame  saties,  absque  labore  quies. 

Est  ibi  verus  amor  sine  luxu,  pax  sine  pugna, 

Et  sine  sorde  decor  et  sine  lite  favor’3. 

He  was  also  the  author  of  an  Ars  Rhythmica ,  in  which  whole 
poems  are  given  as  examples  of  the  rules  of  rhythm4.  His  prose 
works  included  three  Latin  Didionarii ,  or  rather  vocabularies,  ‘  one 
of  common  and  another  of  obscure  words,  and  a  third  of  things  \ 
The  last  of  these  was  clearly  written  for  use  at  the  University 
of  Paris5.  In  another  work6  he  gives  a  list  of  authors  which  the 
student  should  read  in  Latin  literature7,  Grammar8,  Dialectic9, 
Rhetoric10,  Arithmetic,  Geometry,  Astronomy,  Medicine,  Law, 

1  Same  ms,  part  5  ;  cp.  Leyser,  339. 

2  p.  125  Wright.  •  3  p.  129. 

4  ed.  G.  Mari,  I  Trattati  Medievali  di  Ritmica  Latina  (1899),  35 — 80; 
Saintsbury,  i  408. 

5  Part  3  of  above  ms,  f.  143  ;  J.  E.  B.  Mayor,  Joicrn.  of  Cl.  and  S.  Phil . 
iv  7;  and  Haureau,  quoted  on  p.  529,  n.  i ;  T.  Wright’s  Vocabularies  (1857), 
120 — 138  ;  Scheler,  Lexicographic  Latine  du  xii  et  du  xiii  s.  (1867),  18 — 83. 

6  Part  1  of  ms. 

7  Donatus,  Cato,  Theodulus,  Statii  Thebais ,  Virgilii  Aeneis ,  Juvenal, 
Horace,  Ovid  (esp.  RIet.  and  De  Remed.  Am.  and  possibly  the  Fasti),  Statii 
Achilleis,  Virgilii  Bucol.  and  Georg. ;  Sallust,  Cic.  De  Or.,  Tusc.  Disp.,  De  Am., 
De  Sen.,  De  Fato,  Paradoxa,  De  Nat.  Deor.  (?),  De  Off.,  parts  of  Martial  and 
Petronius,  Symmachus,  Solinus,  Sidonius,  Suetonius,  Q.  Curtius,  Trogus 
Pompeius,  Hegesippus,  Livy,  Seneca  [Epp.,  Quaest.,  Ben.,  Trag.  and  Declam.!)", 
p.  47  f. 

8  Donatus,  Priscian. 

9  Boethius,  De  Categ.  Syllog.,  Topica ,  De  Divisione ,  Porphyrii  eisagoge , 
Aristotelis  Categ.,  De  Inter pr..  Soph.  El.,  Anal.  Pr.,  \Apodoxium  [Anal.  Post.) ; 
Cicero,  Topica ;  Apuleius,  De  Interpr. ;  Aristotle,  Met. ,  De  Gen.  et  Corr., 
De  Anima ;  p.  52  v. 

10  Cic.  De  Inv.,  ad  Herenn .,  De  Or.;  Quintilian,  ‘  Causae ’  (i.e.  Decl.),  and 
De  Or.  Inst. 

t  Probably  a  corruption  of  A podeixeon. 


XXIX.] 


HILDEBERT  OF  TOURS. 


529 


Theology,  adding  the  names  of  the  appliances  required  by  a 
notarius  and  a  librarius1.  Roger  Bacon2  heard  Joannes  de 
Garlandia  discourse  in  Paris  on  the  orthography  of  orichalcutn , 
and  his  Dictionarii  were  still  in  use  during  the  boyhood  of 
Erasmus3. 

Latin  verse  was  well  represented  in  France  by  Radulfus 
Tortarius  of  Fleury  ( fl .  1115),  who  versified  Valerius 
Maximus,  and  described  his  journey  to  Blois,  Caen  Tortarius. 
and  Bayeux  in  the  style  of  Horace4 5;  by  Marbod,  nude  be  it 
bishop  of  Rennes  (d.  1125),  the  author  of  the  poem 
De  Gernmis 5 ;  and  by  Hildebert,  bishop  of  Mans  and  archbishop 
of  Tours  (d.  1134)6,  the  only  modern  author  whom  John  of 
Salisbury’s  friends  were  recommended  to  read7.  Taking  Virgil, 
Horace,  the  elegiac  poets  and  Martial  as  his  models,  he  wrote  no 
less  than  10,000  lines  of  verse,  his  principal  poems  being  on  the 
Creation  of  the  World8,  the  Fall  of  Troy9,  and  the  Rums  of  Rome. 
The  last  of  these,  which  is  quoted  in  full  by  William  of  Malmes¬ 
bury10,  was  inspired  by  a  visit  to  Rome  in  1106.  It  is  a  striking 
poem,  beginning  with  the  couplet: — 

‘par  tibi,  Roma,  nihil,  cum  sis  prope  tota  ruina; 
quam  magni  fueras  integra,  fracta  doces 


1  The  same  MS  includes  an  Accentuarius ,  a  Compendium  Gramm.,  and  a 
Morale  Scholarium  by  the  same  author.  He  also  wrote  an  Opus  Synonymorum 
(Leyser,  312  f;  Migne,  cl  157 7)  and  Aequivoco7-um  (Leyser,  338).  See  esp. 
Haureau  in  Notices  et  Extraits ,  xxvii  2  (1879),  1 — 86,  where  31  of  his  works  are 
discriminated. 

2  Op.  Minus ,  c.  7. 

3  Mayor,  /.  c.,  p.  6  note. 

4  De  Certain  in  Bibl.  de  Vecole  des  chartes ,  t.  xvi ;  Leon  Maitre,  Ecoles , 
101  f;  Barth,  Adv.  1.  lii  c.  7;  Hist.  Litt.  x  88;  Migne,  clx. 

5  ed.  Beckmann  (1799);  Migne,  clxxi  1758. 

6  ed.  Beaugendre  (1708);  Migne,  clxxi;  Haureau,  in  Notices  et  Extraits, 
xxviii  2  (1887),  289  f ;  cp.  Neckam,  De  Laudibus ,  p.  454  Wright. 

7  Hildebert,  Epp.  (Migne,  clxxi  141 — 312),  studied  by  Peter  of  Blois, 
Migne,  ccvii  314;  Rashdall,  i  65  n. 

8  Leyser,  391  f. 

9  ib.  398  f. 

10  ii  403  Stubbs;  Burman’s  Anth.  Vet.  Lat.  Epigr.  i  457;  extract  in  Trench, 
Sacred  Latin  Poetry ,  108,  and  in  Norden,  Ktmstprosa,  723. 

S. 


34 


530 


WRITERS  OF  CHURCH  HYMNS. 


[CHAP. 


As  a  writer  of  Sacred  Verse  he  is  more  classical  than  Bernard 
of  Cluni  {ft.  1140),  the  author  of  the  famous  poem 
ChurchThymns  °f  nearly  3000  lines  De  Contemptu  Mundi1,  or 
Bernard  of  Clairvaux  (d.  1153),  with  his  strains 
of  deepest  feeling,  or  other  hymn-writers,  for  example  Peter  the 
Venerable  (d.  1156),  Adam  of  St  Victor  (d.  c.  1192),  and,  among 
the  Italians,  Thomas  Aquinas  (d.  1274),  and  the  authors  of  the 
Dies  Irae  and  the  Stabat  Mater  respectively, — Thomas  of  Celano 
(yfl.  1226)  and  Jacobus  de  Benedictis  (d.  1306)2.  In  the  hymns  of 
authors  such  as  these,  the  Latin  Verse  of  the  Middle  Ages  held  its 
own  against  the  vernacular  languages  of  Europe  ;  it  was  only  when 
it  was  consecrated  to  the  service  of  the  Church  that  that  Verse 
became  immortal.  The  sacred  lyrics  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth 
centuries  attain  a  far  higher  level  of  literary  interest  than  the 
Aurora  of  Petrus  de  Riga,  canon  of  Rheims 
(d.  1209)3,  whose  vast  poem  of  15,050  lines  supplies 
a  paraphrase  of  a  large  part  of  the  historical  books 
of  the  Bible4.  The  story  of  Tobit  is  the  theme 
of  Matthew  of  Vendome,  a  pupil  of  Bernard  Silvester  and  an 
imitator  of  Tibullus  and  Propertius5.  Epic  poetry  was  meanwhile 
represented  by  the  Philippis  of  Guilielmus  Brito  of 
Gautier  de  St  Pol  de  Leon  (1150 — 1 226),  chaplain  to  king 
deSrisieAlain  Philip  Augustus,  and  an  imitator  of  Ovid,  Statius 
and  Virgil.  The  ten  books  of  the  Alexandreis 6  of 
Gautier  de  Chatillon  or  de  l’lsle  ( Gualterus  ab  Insulis ,  d.  1201) 
were  founded  on  Curtius,  and  modelled  on  Lucan ; — lucet  Alex- 


Petrus  de 
Riga. 

Matthew  of 
Vendome 


1  Latin  Satirical  Poets ,  ii  7 — 102  {Rolls  Series) ;  extracts  in  Trench,  304  f, 
partly  translated  by  J.  M.  Neale  (1858  etc.);  Hymns  A.  and  AL,  Nos. 
225-8. 

2  Trench,  /.  c. ;  Neale,  Eccl.  Lat.  Poetry  in  Enc.  Metrop . ,  Roman  Lit. 
211-66  (18523)  ;  Moorsom,  Hist.  Companion,  117 — 1492;  also  Daniel’s 
Thesaurus,  and  Julian’s  Dictionary. 

3  Grasse,  Handbuch,  ii  306;  in  the  prologue  to  his  Aurora,  he  says  ‘Petrus 
Riga  vocor  ’. 

4  Leyser,  692  f. 

5  Wright  and  Halliwell,  Reliquiae  Antiquae ,  ii  257  f.  FI.  at  Tours  after 
1174.  His  poetic  epistles  in  S.  Ber.  Bayr.  Akad.  1872,  561 — 631. 

3  ed.  princeps  Pynson;  ed.  Muldener  (1863);  cp.  R.  Peiper  (Breslau, 
1869). 


XXIX.]  GAUTIER  AND  ALAIN  DE  L’lSLE. 


531 


ander  Luccuii  lucev.  In  13302  his  epic  poem  was  regarded  as  a 
Classic  in  Flanders,  the  land  of  his  birth,  but  all  that  is'  now 
remembered  is  the  single  line : — incidis  in  Scyllam  cupiens  vitare 
Charybdim 3.  His  prose  work,  the  Moralium  Dogma  (which  has 
led  to  his  being  regarded  as  a  precursor  of  the  Renaissance),  is  a 
purely  pagan  treatise  founded  mainly  on  Cicero  and  Seneca  and 
abounding  in  quotations  from  Terence,  Sallust,  Virgil,  Horace, 
Lucan,  Statius,  Persius  and  Juvenal4.  The  rising  reputation  of 
his  Alexandreis  was  attacked  by  the  poet’s  countryman,  Alain  de 
Lisle  (A/anus  ab  Insulis ),  the  ‘Universal  Doctor’,  who  died  as  a 
monk  at  Clairvaux  (0.  1203).  He  is  best  known  as  the  author  of 
the  remarkable  poem  called  the  Anti-C/audianus5 .  Here6,  as  in 
Claudian’s  first  poem  In  Rufinum1,  Alecto  summons  her  infernal 
crew  to  attack  the  hero  of  the  epic, — Rufinus  in  the  earlier  poem, 
and  the  newly-created  Man  in  the  later;  but,  while  in  Claudian 
the  attack  is  triumphant,  in  Alanus  the  Vices  are  vanquished  by 
the  Virtues.  In  the  Anti-Claudianus  the  Palace  of  Nature  is 
adorned  with  portraits  of  Plato,  Aristotle,  Cicero,  Virgil,  Seneca 
and  Ptolemy8,  while  Aristotle,  Zeno,  Porphyry  and  Boethius  are 
singled  out  in  connexion  with  Dialectic9.  The  long  and  elaborate 
descriptions  of  the  Seven  Liberal  Arts  that  conspire  in  making  the 
several  parts  of  the  chariot  of  Wisdom10,  and  also  in  bestowing 
their  varied  gifts  on  the  perfect  Man11,  point  to  the  influence  of 
Martianus  Capella.  That  of  Boethius  is  no  less  clearly  marked  in 
the  mingled  prose  and  verse  of  the  De  Planctu  Naturae™,  where 
the  character  of  ‘  Genius  ’  excommunicating  all  who  abuse  the 
laws  of  Nature  has  found  an  imitator  in  the  ‘Roman  de  la  Rose’  of 

1  Eberhard,  Labyrinthus ,  iii  39;  cp.  K.  Francke,  Schulpoesie  (1879),  p.  Sgf. 
In  the  same  work  Geoffrey  de  Vinsauf,  Eberhard,  Henricus  of  Septimello  and 
of  Milan,  Bernhard  of  Gest  (near  Munster)  and  Nigellus  are  discussed. 

2  Warton,  /.  c.,  p.  clxix.  3  v  301  ;  Migne,  ccix  514. 

4  p.  33  ed.  Sundby  (1869);  Bartoli’s  Precursori,  27-9. 

5  Satirical  Poets ,  ii  268 — 428  T.  Wright,  beginning  Incipit  prologus  in 
Anticlaudianum  de  Antiruf.no.  Cp.  O.  Leist,  Der  Anticlaudianus  (Seehausen, 
1878  f). 

6  p.  404.  7  1.  25  f. 

8  p.  277  f.  9  p-  313  b 

10  PP-  3°4 — 332-  11  PP-  39°— 3- 

12  ed.  Wright,  ii  429 — 522. 


34—2 


532 


ALAIN  DE  L’ISLE.  EBERHARD. 


[CHAP. 


Jean  de  Meung  (c.  1270)1,  while  Chaucer2  knows  this  poem  as 
well  as  the  ‘  Anticlaudian ’3.  In  the  latter,  the  allegory  of  the 
journey  of  Wisdom  to  the  throne  of  God  may  have  had  its  influ¬ 
ence  on  Dante4,  and  the  following  lines  seem  not  entirely  unworthy 
of  comparison  with  part  of  Milton’s  sublime  invocation  of  ‘  celes¬ 
tial  Light ’R : — 

‘  Tu  mihi  praeradia  divina  luce,  meamque 
Plenius  irrorans  divino  nectare  mentem 
Complue,  terge  notas  animi,  tenebrasque  reddens 
Discute,  meque  tuae  lucis  splendore  serena’6. 

The  poem  includes  a  singularly  elegant  description  of  the 
island-home  of  Fortune7,  besides  repeated  references  to  Plato’s 
theory  of  Ideas8;  and  its  last  two  pages  are  remarkably  fine.  As 
a  poet,  the  author  is  even  regarded  by  Joannes  de  Garlandia  as 
Virgilio  major ,  et  Homero  ceriior 9.  In  his  prose  works  he  borrows 
moral  sentiments  from  Cicero10  and  Seneca11,  besides  showing 
his  familiarity  with  the  Latin  translation  of  the  Timaeus 12  and  the 
Neo-Platonic  Liber  de  Causis.  Eberhard  of  Bethune  ( ft .  1212) 
and  Alexander  of  Ville-Dieu  (d.  1240)  write  their 
Grammars13  in  Latin  verse,  but  have  no  pretensions 
to  being  poets.  But  the  former  is  also  the  reputed  author  of  the 
Labyrinthus 14,  a  poem  on  the  miseries  of  teachers  of  rhetoric  and 
poetry,  the  third  and  last  part  of  which  supplies  us  with  a  critical 
estimate  of  the  poets  in  vogue,  more  than  30  in  number.  By  the 

1  H.  Morley,  iv  15b 

2  Par  lenient  of  Forties,  316,  ‘Alayne,  in  the  Pleynt  of  Kynde’. 

3  House  of  Fame,  ii  478.  He  also  imitates  in  Cant .  Tales ,  16430!,  a  couplet 
from  the  Parabolae-. —  ‘Non  teneas  aurum  totum  quod  splendet  ut  aurum,  |  Nec 
pulchrum  pomum  quodlibet  esse  bonum  ’  (Leyser,  1074). 

4  Ten  Brink,  and  Rambeau  (H.  Morley,  v  231). 

5  P.  L.  iii  51  f.  6  p.  356.  7  p.  396-9. 

8  pp.  290,  372,  379,  449,  518  (all  suggested  by  the  Timaeus  alone).  Like 
Abelard  and  Bernard  Silvester,  he  personifies  vov s  as  Noys. 

9  De  Triumphis  Ecclesiae ,  p.  74. 

10  Migne,  ccx,  De  arte praedicatoria ,  c.  1,  where  nihil  citius  arescit  lacryma , 
quoted  as  from  Lucretius,  really  comes  from  ad  Herenn.  ii  31  §  50,  or  Cic.  de 
Inv.  i  56  §  109. 

11  ib.  cc.  3,  21,  23-5,  29,  36  (Haureau,  i  523). 

12  Haureau,  i  528.  13  p.  640  infra. 

14  Leyser,  796 — 854.  Eberhardus  is  named  as  the  author  in  Part  iii  689; 
cp.  Saintsbury,  i  408  f. 


XXIX.]  GUNTHER.  SAXO  GRAMMATICUS,  ETC. 


533 


Gunther 


side  of  Virgil  and  Ovid,  Persius  and  Juvenal,  Statius  and  Claudian, 
we  here  find  later  poets  such  as  Petrus  de  Riga  and  Alanus  ab 
Insulis,  with  the  authors  of  the  Architrenius,  the  Alexandreis ,  the 
Physiologus  (Theobaldus1 2),  and  the  Solimarius 2  (Gunther).  The 
writer  of  this  last,  a  Cistercian  monk,  who  was 
probably  of  German  origin  and  lived  in  the  Vosges 
until  after  1210,  is  far  better  known  as  the  author  of  the  Ligurinus 
(1187),  a  famous  epic  in  ten  books  on  the  exploits  of  Frederic 
Barbarossa,  where  the  facts  are  derived  from  Otto  of  Freising 
and  the  style  from  Lucan3.  Justin  and  Valerius  Maximus,  with 
Martianus  Capella,  are  the  models  followed  in  the  blended  prose 
and  verse  of  the  Danish  History  of  Saxo  Grammaticus  (ending 
with  1185)4.  In  the  following  century  the  only  Latin  poems  of 
note  in  Germany  are  the  Ovidian  Lippifloriu??ih  of  Justinus  of 
Lippstadt  (before  1264)  on  the  varied  career  of  Bernard  of  Lippe 
as  knight,  monk  and  bishop ;  and  the  Herlingsberga 6  of  Heinrich 
Rosla  of  Nienburg  (near  Hanover)  on  certain  heroic  exploits  of  a 
duke  of  Braun schweig-Luneberg  in  1287.  These  exploits  were 
fortunate  in  being  celebrated  by  a  vates  sacer ,  but  the  vaies  himself 
has  attained  little  more  than  local  fame.  Late  in  century  xii  the 
Hortus  Deliciarum  gives  proof  of  a  prejudice  against  poetry,  and 
a  preference  for  philosophy  and  the  Liberal  Arts  (see  plate  on 

p' S37^ 

Before  turning  to  the  second  period  in  the  history  of  Scholas¬ 
ticism,  we  may  here  notice  a  few  of  the  indications 
of  the  study  of  Greek  in  the  twelfth  century.  France" 

Guibert,  abbot  of  Nogent  (d.  1124),  notes  the  rise 
in  his  own  lifetime  of  a  new  interest  in  literary  studies7,  but  he 


1  His  description  of  the  Sirens  was  known  to  Chaucer,  Cant.  Tales ,  15277 
Tyrwhitt. 

2  A  poem  of  the  Crusades;  Warton,  Eng.  Poet.,  Diss.  11  clxx;  240  lines 
published  by  Wattenbach,  1881  (Bursian,  Cl.  Philol.,  i  73). 

3  Migne,  ccxii  327 — 476  (with  Prooemia  255!  and  eruditorum  testimonia , 
280  f);  Pannenborg  in  Forschungen  zur  deutschen  Gesch.,  1871-3;  Norden, 
Kanstprosa,  875-9;  Bursian,  i  72;  and  esp.  Wattenbach,  Geschichtsquellen , 
ii6  286 — 290. 

4  Bursian,  i  73  f.  5  ed.  Laubmann  (1872). 

3  ed.  Meibom,  in  Scr.  Per.  Germ,  i  775  (Bursian,  i  85  f). 

7  Migne,  clvi  844  (Rashdall’s  Universities ,  i  32). 


534 


GREEK  IN  FRANCE, 


[CHAP. 


supplies  no  proof  of  any  interest  in  Greek.  While  Abelard  knew 
no  Greek,  the  mystic  Hugo  of  St  Victor,  who  died  in  the  same 
year  (1142),  produced  a  new  translation  of  ‘Dionysius  the 
Areopagite’1.  His  pupil,  Richard  of  St  Victor  (d.  1173),  ‘who 
was  in  contemplation  more  than  man  ’2,  so  far  from  studying 
Greek,  prompted  men  to  leave  in  the  plain  Aristotle  and  Plato 
and  all  the  herd  of  philosophers,  and  to  ascend  the  mount  of 
contemplation  that  looks  down  on  all  the  sciences  and  on  all 
philosophy3.  Macarius,  abbot  of  Fleury  (d.  1146),  has  the  credit 
of  having  compiled  a  Greek  lexicon  (printed  in  the  fifth  volume 
of  Stephens’  Thesaurus 4),  but  this  ‘  lexicon  ’  is  merely  an  abstract 
from  Sui'das,  and  is  probably  the  work  of  a  Byzantine  monk5. 
The  Greek  books  which  Guillaume  de  Gap,  abbot  of  St  Denis 
from  1 1 72-3  to  1186,  brought  to  St  Denis  from  Constantinople 
in  1167s,  included  a  panegyric  on  Dionysius  by  Michael, 
‘patriarch’  of  Jerusalem,  which  is  still  extant7,  and  a  life  of  the 
philosopher  Secundus,  which  Guillaume  himself  translated  into 
Latin,  while  the  panegyric  was  translated  by  another  Guillaume 
of  St  Denis,  the  correspondent  of  another  translator  of  Dionysius, 
John  the  Saracen8.  Pierre  le  Chantre,  bishop  of  Paris  (d.  1197), 
mentions,  among  Greek  authorities,  Aristippus,  Aristotle,  Demo¬ 
sthenes,  Diogenes,  Epicurus,  Josephus,  Plato  and  Porphyry9,  and 
borrows  a  quotation  from  the  Phoetiissae™ '.  About  the  same  time 
the  sub-prior  of  Ste-Barbe-en-Auge  reminds  a  monk  at  Caen  that 
‘a  cloister  without  books  is  like  a  castle  without  an  armoury’11. 
But,  in  the  catalogue  of  the  neighbouring  monastery  at  Bee 
(c.  1164),  not  a  single  Greek  book  is  to  be  found12.  About  the 
year  1200,  Helinand,  a  monk  of  Froidmont,  near  Beauvais,  writes 

I  Migne,  clxxviii  1080  D,  1704B — c.  2  Dante,  Par.  x  132. 

3  Migne,  exevi  54;  Benjamin  Minor ,  c.  75. 

4  Tougard,  64. 

5  Macarii  hieromonachi  ecloge  e  lexico  Suidae  (Krumbacher,  p.  563-’). 

6  p.  415  supra. 

7  Paris  Library,  fonds  grec,  no.  933. 

8  Delisle  in  Journal  des  Savants  (1900),  725 — 739. 

9  Migne,  ccv  19  (Tougard,  61). 

10  ib.  30  D,  borrowed  from  Seneca,  Ep.  49. 

II  ib.  845  a  (quoted  on  p.  429). 

12  Migne,  cl  769 — 792  ;  Mullinger’s  Cambridge ,  i  100  f. 


XXIX.] 


GERMANY  AND  ITALY. 


535 


Germany 


Italy 


for  yvioOt  creavrov  nothiselitos  and  nothise/ito1.  It  was  only  through 
the  Fathers  that  some  of  the  Latin  scholars  of  France  caught  a 
far-off  echo  of  Greek  learning2.  Meanwhile,  in  Germany,  we  find 
David  the  ‘Scot’  writing  at  Wurzburg  on  the  De 
Interpretatione  (1137 )3,  Otto  of  Freising  (d.  1158) 
promoting  the  study  of  Aristotle4;  and  Wibold,  abbot  of  Corvey 
(d.  1158),  reading  Greek  and  Latin  poets,  orators  and  philo¬ 
sophers.  When  he  borrows  certain  works  of  Cicero  from  the 
library  at  Hildesheim,  he  deposits  as  pledge  ‘the  commentaries 
of  Origen  ’  and  a  Greek  book  on  Tactics 5.  The  Italian  hellenists 
of  this  century  include  Grossolano,  archbishop  of 
Milan  (d.  1117),  who  was  sent  by  Pascal  II  to 
Constantinople,  and  whose  Greek  argument  on  the  Procession  of 
the  Holy  Ghost  is  still  extant6;  Jacobus  Clericus  of  Venice,  who 
translated  and  expounded  the  Topics ,  Analytics  and  Sop  hist ici 
Elenchi  of  Aristotle  (1128)7;  Alberico  of  Bologna  (c.  1150),  who 
translated  the  aphorisms  of  Hippocrates8;  the  Tuscan  brothers, 
Hugo  and  Leo  (c.  1170-77),  both  of  whom  took  part  in  Greek 
discussions  at  Constantinople,  and  the  latter  of  whom  produced 
a  rendering  of  the  Oneirocritici  Graeci9 ;  and  Godfrey  of  Viterbo 
(d.  1190),  who  is  said  to  have  known  Greek,  Hebrew,  Chaldee 
and  other  languages10.  About  the  same  date  Pisa  is  represented 
by  Hugutio,  bishop  of  Ferrara  (1191 — 1212),  who  compiled  from 
Papias  an  etymological  dictionary  in  which  Greek  words  are 


1  Gidel,  27411. 

2  Philip  de  Harveng,  abbot  of  Bonne-Esperance  (Migne,  cciii  154),  etsi 
(lingua)  Hebraea  et  Graeca  eo  datae  sunt  ordine  patribus  ab  antiquo,  tamen 
quia  non  usu  sed  fama  sola  ad  nos  veniunt  de  longinquo ,  eisdem  valefacto  ad 
Latinam  praesentem  noster  utcunque  se  applicat  intellectus  (Denifle,  in  Archiv 
fur...MA ,  iv  595). 

3  Heeren,  i  257  f. 

4  Bursian,  i  68,  75  f ;  p.  512  supra. 

5  ‘  quem  Graece  stratagematon  vocant,  quod  militare  est’;  Migne,  clxxxix 
1298  f  (Tougard,  59). 

6  Gradenigo,  50  b 

7  Robertus  de  Monte,  abbot  of  Mont  S.  Michel  (Pertz.  Mon.  viii,  Scr.  vi, 
489  n.);  cp.  Jourdain,  58;  Prantl,  ii  992;  Ueberweg,  i  391. 

8  Gradenigo,  70. 

9  ib.  7 1 — 5. 

10  ib.  76 — 83;  depreciated  by  Muratori,  in  Pref.  to  Scr.  Rerum  Hal.,  i  p.  vii. 


536 


GREEK  IN  ENGLAND.  [CHAP.  XXIX. 


quoted1;  and  by  the  famous  jurist  Joannes  Burgundio  (d.  1194), 
an  envoy  of  Barbarossa  in  the  East,  who  translated  certain  of  the 
works  of  ‘Gregory  of  Nyssa’  (i.e.  Nemesius,  On  the  Nature  of 
Man)2,  Chrysostom,  and  John  of  Damascus  (On  the  Orthodox 
Faith),  together  with  the  Greek  passages  in  the  Pandects,  the 
rendering  of  which  is  ascribed  to  another  by  Accursius3.  It  was 
Burgundio  who  pointed  out  to  John  of  Salisbury  the  importance 
of  the  Posterior  Analytics 4.  The  state  of  Greek  learning  in 
England  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that,  in 

England  °  J  ' 

the  catalogue  of  Christ  Church,  Canterbury  (end 
of  cent,  xn),  while,  there  are  18  mss  connected  with  Priscian, 
the  only  Greek  book  is  a  grammar  (Donatus  Graece),  and  Aristotle 
is  represented  solely  by  Latin  renderings  of  the  Topica  and 
Sophistici  Elenchi  and  of  Porphyry’s  Introduction,  with  the  com¬ 
mentaries  by  Boethius5.  ‘Master  Thomas  Brown’,  who  enjoyed 
the  confidence  of  king  Roger  of  Sicily  (d.  1154),  is  the  first 
Englishman  whose  name  was  written  in  Greek,  Thomas  Brounos 
appearing  among  the  attestations  of  the  Greek  charters  of  king 
Roger6.  The  Greek  studies  of  John  of  Salisbury  (d.  1180)  have 
already  been  noticed7.  Alexander  Neckam  of  St  Albans  (d.  12 17)8, 
who  learnt  and  taught  in  Paris  (1180),  quotes  the  Analytica 
Posterior  a2,  the  Topica  and  De  Amina10.  His  younger  fellow- 
countryman,  Alfred  de  Sereshel,  in  his  work  De  Motu  Cordis, 
dedicated  to  Neckam,  names  nearly  all  the  works  of  Aristotle 
which  had  lately  been  translated  from  Arabic  into  Latin11.  He 
has  been  identified  with  ‘Alfred  the  Englishman’,  the  translator 
of  the  De  Plantis,  whom  we  shall  shortly  meet  again  among 
the  translators  from  the  Arabic,  who  gave  a  new  extension  to 
the  knowledge  of  Aristotle  in  the  West  of  Europe12. 

1  Du  Cange,  Praef.  §  46 ;  Gradenigo,  83  f. 

2  ed.  C.  J.  Burkhard  (Wien,  1902).  3  Gradenigo,  86 — 94. 

4  Met.  iv  7  (Prantl,  ii2  106);  omitted  in  Theodoric’s  Eptateuchon  (1141), 
Clerval,  Ecoles  de  Chartres ,  245. 

5  Mullinger,  i  100  f;  facsimile  in  M.  R.  James,  Canterbury  Libraries. 

6  Stubbs,  Lectures ,  1331;  Freeman,  Hist.  Essays,  iii  472.  Neither  gives 
the  original  text :  Cusa,  Diplomi,  Palermo,  1868,  i  313,  p.a.S'po  6u)p.d  roD  ftpobvov, 

7  p.  520.  8  p.  526  k 

9  De  Naturis  Rerum ,  pp.  57,  142,  291,  293,  299.  He  calls  it  Analectica. 

10  Haureau,  n  i  63.  11  ib.  6.5  f.  '  32  p.  547. 


I 


A(T».fpu  umitt&o 
'  ymftmch 


Philosophy  and  the  Liberal  Arts,  versus  the  Poets. 


From  the  Hortus  Deliciarum  of  Herrad  von  Landsperg  (d.  1195),  reduced 
from  plate  xi  bis  of  Straub  and  Keller’s  folio  ed.  (Strassburg,  1899). 
See  p.  595  f  infra ,  and  List  of  Illustrations. 


History  of  Scholarship,  &c.,  in  the  West,  1200 — 1400  A.D. 


1200 


Italy- 


1210  f.  Franciscans 

1212  d.  Hugutio  bp  of 
Ferrara 

1220  Frederic  II  crowned 
at  Rome 

1221  Michael  Scot  at 
Bologna 

1220  or  1232  Frederic  II 
sends  translations  of 
Aristotle  to  Bologna 
and  Paris 

1222  f.  Univ.  Padua 

1224  f.  Univ.  Naples 

1226  Thomas  of  Celano 

1230  Bonaccursius 


1249  d.  Petrus  de  Vinea 
1250-647?.  Bartholomew 
of  Messina 


1260  d.  Accursius 

1266  Henricus  Mediola- 
nensis 

1271  Gerard  of  Sabbio- 
netta 

1221-74  Bonaventura 

1225-74  Thomas  Aquinas 

(1268-81  fl.  William  of 
Moerbeke) 

1283-4  Siger  of  Brabant 
d.  at  Orvieto 

1286  Balbi 

1294  d.  Brunetto  Latini 

Guido  delle  Colonne 


1300 


Spain 


1209?— 1217 
Michael 
Scot  at 
Toledo 


France 


1240  &  1256 
Hermann 
the  Ger¬ 
man  at 
Toledo 
1243  f.Univ. 
Salamanca 


1277  d.  Pe¬ 
trus  His- 
panus 


Marchesini  of  Reggio 
1306  d.  Jacobus  de  Bene- 
dictis 

1309  d.  Lovato 
1250-1315  Petrus  Apo* 
nensis 

1265-1321  Dante 
1261-1329  Mussato 
1319-27  fl.  Del  Virgilio 
1337  Ferreto 
1343  f.  Univ.  Pisa 


1349  f.  Univ.  Florence 


74  Petrarch 

75  Boccaccio 

1406  Coluccio  Salu- 

t 

1400  Chrysoloras  at 


1201  d.  Gautier  de  l’Isle 

1203  d.  Alain  de  l’lsle 

1135-1204  Peter  of  Blois 

1207  d.  Amalrich 

1209  d.  Petrus  Riga 

1210  Aristotle’s  Physics 
proscribed  in  Paris 

i2i2  Eberhard  of  Beth- 
une 

1215  Aristotle’s  Physics 
and  Metaphysics  pro¬ 
scribed 

1215  f.  Dominicans 

1217  Dominicansin  Paris 

1226  d.  Guilielmus  Brito 

1228-48  fl.  William  of 
Auvergne 

1230  Franciscan  sin  Paris, 
joined  1231  by  Alex¬ 
ander  of  Hales  (d.  1245) 

1231  Aristotle’s  Physics 
conditionally  allowed 

1240  d.  Alexander  of 
Villedieu 


1204-52  fl.  Joannes  de 
Garland  ia 

1253  d-  John  of  Rochelle 

1255  Aristotle’s  Physics 
and  Metaphys.  studied 
in  Paris 

1261  The  new  Orders 
recognised  in  Univ.  of 
Paris 

1264  d.  Vincent  of  Beau¬ 
vais 


1272  Siger  of  Brabant 
leaves  Paris 

1283  Gilles  de  Paris,  De 
Regimine  Principum 


1 31 1  Council  of  Vienne 
1315  d.  Raymund  Lull 
1294-1316  Gilles  de  Paris 
( Egidio  da  Roma )  bp 
of  Bourges 
1322  Jean  de  Jandun 
1327  Buridan,  rector 
Univ.  Paris,  d.  1350 
1344  Levi  ben  Gerson 


1348  Nicolas  d’Autrecour 


1362  d.  Pierre  Bersuire 
1366  Study  of  Aristotle 
recognised  in  Paris 

1382  d.  Nicole  Oresme 


Germany 


1210  Albrecht  v. 
Halberstadt 


1215  Frederic  II 
crowned  at 
Aachen 


1193-1280  Al- 
bertus  Magnus 


1280  Hugo  von 
Trimberg 

1281  Conrad  von 
Mure 

1281-3  Nicolaus 
de  Bibera 

1284  H.  Kos- 
beinofLiibeck 


1347-8  f.  Univ. 
Prague 

1365  f.  Univ. 
Vienna 

1383  Deventer 
school  f.  by 
Gerardus 
Magnus,  and 
1396  Florentius 
Radewytis 
1386  f.  Univ. 

Heidelberg 
1388  f.  Univ. 

Cologne 
1392  f.  Univ. 
Erfurt 


British  Isles 


1200  d.  Nigellus  Wi- 
recker 

1200  Geoffrey  Vinsauf 

1201  d.  Roger  Hoveden 

1202  d.  Ralph  de  Diceto 

1210  d.  Joseph  of  Exeter 

121 1  Gervase  of  Tilbury 


1217  d.  Alexander  Neck- 
am 

1147-1222  Giraldus  Cam- 
brensis 


1234?  d.  Michael  Scot 

1240  d.  Edmund  Rich 
abp  of  Canterbury 

1245  d.  Alexander  Hales 
(Paris) 

1230-50  fl.  Bartholo- 
maeus  Anglicus 

1249  f.  Univ.  Coll.  Ox. 

1252  d.  John  of  Basing¬ 
stoke 

1 1 75-1253  Grosseteste- 

1258  d.  Adam  Marsh 

1259  d.  Matthew  Paris 

1260  William  Shyrwood 

1260-9  f-  Balliol  Coll. 


1264  f.  Merton  Coll. 
1215-70  fl.  Alfred  de 
Sereshel 


1279  d.  Kilwardby  abp 
of  Canterbury 
1284  f.  Peterhouse,Camb. 
1214-94  Roger  Bacon 


1300  Geoffrey  of  Water' 
ford 

1308  d.  Duns  Scotus 
(Cologne) 

1316  f.  Exeter  Coll. 

1326  f.  Oriel  and  Clare 
1340  f.  Queen’s  Coll.  Ox. 

1345  d.  Richard  of  Bury 
1345?  d.  Walter  Burley 

1346  d.  John  of  Bacon- 
thorpe 

1347  d.  William  of  Ock¬ 
ham 

1347  f.  Pembroke  Coll. 
Camb. 

1348  f.  Gonville  Hall 

1349  d.  Thomas  Brad- 
wardine  abp  of  Can¬ 
terbury 

1350  f.  Trinity  Hall 
1352  f.  Corp.  Chr.  Coll. 

Camb. 

1373  f.  Winchester 
School 

1380  f.  New  Coll. 
1324-84  Wycliffe 
1328-1400  Chaucer 


Continued  from  p.  496. 


CHAPTER  XXX. 


THE  THIRTEENTH  CENTURY.  THE  NEW  ARISTOTLE. 


The  Schoolmen  had  apparently  become  acquainted  with  the 
whole  of  Aristotle’s  Organon  after  11281,  and  there 
is  definite  proof  of  such  acquaintance  on  the  part  of  Aristotle" 
John  of  Salisbury  in  11592.  Much  of  the  mediaeval 
knowledge  of  Greek  literature  in  Western  Europe  came  through 
Latin  translations  of  Arabic  renderings  of  the  original  Greek. 
Works  of  Hippocrates  and  Galen  were  translated  from  the  Arabic, 
at  Monte  Cassino,  by  the  monk  Constantine  (0.  1050-80),  who 
was  born  in  Northern  Africa  and  who  studied  in  distant  Babylon3; 
and  the  first  acquaintance  of  Western  Europe  with  any  of  the 
Aristotelian  writings  other  than  the  Orga?ion  was  due  to  the 
Arabs  of  Spain.  In  the  middle  of  the  twelfth  century,  and  again, 
during  the  first  half  of  the  thirteenth,  the  great  centre  of  activity 
in  the  production  of  Latin  renderings  from  the  Arabic  was  Toledo 
on  the  Tagus,  which  had  been  under  Arab  rule  from  714  to  1085, 
when  it  was  added  by  Alphonso  the  Brave  to  the  dominion  of 
Castile.  Before  1150  Avicenna’s  commentary  on  the  De  Anitna , 
and  other  physical  and  metaphysical  writings  of  Arabian  philoso¬ 
phers,  were  there  translated  from  Arabic  through 

^  .  .  .  .  .  ...  Gondisalvi 

Castilian  into  Latin  by  Dominic  Gondisalvi  with 

the  aid  of  the  Jewish  interpreter,  Joannes  Avendeath  (ben  David), 


1  PP-  5°7>  535-  2  P-  5i9' 

3  Jourdain,  Recherches,  96.  Cp.  Rashdall’s  Universities,  i  81  ;  and 
Steinschneider  in  Virchczv's  Archiv,  B.  37 — 39,  Constantinus  Africanus  u. 
seine  arabischen  Quellen\  also  F.  Wiistenfeld  in  Gottingen  Abhandl.  xxii  2, 
1877  (Die  Uebersetzungen  Arabischer  Werke  in  das  Lateinische,  pp.  133), 
10 — 20.  ‘Constantyn’  is  named  with  ‘old  Ypocras’  and  ‘Galien’  in  Chaucer’s 
Prologue,  433. 


540 


GONDISAI.VI.  GERARD  OF  CREMONA.  [CHAP. 


Gerard  of 
Cremona 


and  by  the  command  of  Raymund,  archbishop  of  Toledo  (c.  1130 — 
1150)1.  Gerard  of  Cremona,  the  elder  (d.  1187), 
was  attracted  to  Toledo  by  his  interest  in  Ptolemy’s 
A/magest ,  which  he  translated  in  1175.  Among 
the  more  than  70  other  works,  which  he  rendered  from  Arabic  , 
into  Latin,  were  Aristotle’s  Analytica  Posteriora ,  Physics,  De 
Caelo  et  Mundo ,  De  Generatione  et  Corruptione  and  Meteorologica , 
as  well  as  the  Pseudo-Aristotelian  De  Causis s. 

The  thirteenth  century  witnessed  a  still  further  and  far  more 
important  extension  in  the  knowledge  of  the  works  of  Aristotle. 
For  this  extension  the  Schoolmen  were  indebted,  on  the  one  hand, 
to  the  Arabs  and  Jews  in  the  West,  and  on  the  other,  either 
directly  or  indirectly,  to  the  Greeks  in  the  East.  Aristotle  had 
long  been  studied  in  Syria  and  Arabia3;  and  the  knowledge  of 
his  writings,  which  had  passed  from  Constantinople  to  the  East, 
had  subsequently  followed  the  course  of  Arab  conquest  along  the 
Northern  coast  of  Africa,  till  it  reached  the  West  in  Spain,  and 
thence  found  its  way  into  France ;  but  the  Arabic  translations 
executed  at  Bagdad  in  the  first  half  of  the  ninth  century  did  not 
reach  Paris  in  their  Latin  form  until  after  the  middle  of  the  twelfth. 


1  Jourdain,  112  f.  In  the  preface  to  the  Latin  version  of  Avicenna’s  Arabic 
treatise  De  Anima ,  ‘Joannes  Avendehut  ’  (i .z.  Joannes  Hispalensis),  writing  to 
the  abp  of  Toledo,  describes  it  as  ‘  hunc  librum  vobis  praecipientibus,  et  me 
singula  verba  vulgaritcr  proferente,  et  Dominico  Archidiacono  singula  in 
Latinum  convertente,  ex  Arabico  translatum ib.  449;  cp.  151,  217. 
Gondisalvi  also  translated  the  De  Caelo ,  Physics  and  Metaphysics  of  Avicenna 
(Brown,  Michael  Scot,  pp.  236,  238),  and  the  ‘Logic  and  Philosophy’  of 
Algazel  (Ueberweg,  i  407).  Joannes  Hispalensis  was  the  translator  of  the  De 
differentia  spiritus  et  animae  of  Costa  ben  Luca,  a  Christian  philosopher  and 
physician  of  Baalbek  (864 — 923),  who  brought  Creek  mss  into  Syria  and 
translated  Greek  works  at  Bagdad  (Barach,  Bibl.  Philos.  Med.  Aet.  ii  118). 
Cp.  Wustenfeld,  Gottingen  Abhandl.  25 — 39.  The  translation  of  the  Koran 
promoted  by  Peter  the  Venerable  (d.  1156)  was  executed  in  Spain  in  1141-3 
by  Robertus  Retinensis,  an  Englishman  who  ended  his  days  as  archdeacon  of 
Pampeluna.  He  was  probably  aided  by  Hermann  the  Dalmatian  and  ‘Master 
Peter  of  Toledo’  (Brown,  1 1 9 ;  cp.  Migne,  clxxxix  14,  659;  Wustenfeld,  44 — 50). 
Rodolfus  Brugensis,  who  translated  Ptolemy’s  Planisphere  at  Toulouse  in 
1144,  was  a  pupil  of  Hermann,  and  Robertus  Retinensis  was  a  younger  friend 
of  the  latter  (WUstenfeld,  48 — 53). 

2  Wustenfeld,  Gottingen  Abhandl.  58,  66  f. 

3  P-  385  supra. 


XXX.] 


AVEMPACE.  AVERROES. 


541 


The  Arabian  philosophy  was  a  form  of  Aristotelianism  blended 
with  Neo-Platonism.  In  the  twelfth  century  its 

.  .  .  .  .  Avempace 

principal  representatives  in  Spain  were  Avempace 
(d.  1138)  and  Averroes  (d.  1198).  Avempace,  who  wrote  a 
number  of  logical  treatises  at  Seville  (c.  1118),  and  afterwards 
lived  at  Granada  and  in  Africa,  left  behind  him  commentaries 
on  the  Physics,  the  Meteorologica  and  other  physical  works  of 
Aristotle.  Averroes,  who  was  born  at  Cordova 

Averroes 

(1126),  became  a  judge  at  Seville  and  Cordova, 
and  (in  1163)  was  recommended  to  the  Calif  as  the  fittest  person 
to  expound  the  works  of  Aristotle  and  make  them  accessible  to 
all1.  He  was  physician  to  the  Calif  and  to  his  successor, 
Almansur,  by  whom  he  was  banished  in  1195,  the  study  of 
Greek  philosophy  having  already  been  forbidden  in  the  Moorish 
dominions  in  Spain.  In  1198  he  died,  and,  not  long  after,  the 
Moors  were  defeated  on  the  uplands  of  Tolosa  (1212),  subsequently 
losing  Cordova  in  1236  and  Seville  in  1244.  The  Arabian 
philosophy  was  soon  extinguished  in  Spain  and  elsewhere,  and 
the  interest  in  Aristotelianism  transferred  from  the  Moslems  to 
the  Christians.  Averroes,  whose  reverence  for  Aristotle  even 
exceeded  that  of  his  Eastern  exponent,  Avicenna,  regarded  the 
Greek  philosopher  as  ‘the  only  man  whom  God  had  permitted  to 
attain  the  highest  summit  of  perfection’,  and  as  ‘the  founder  and 
perfecter  of  scientific  knowledge’2.  His  services  to  Aristotle 
were  threefold.  He  prepared  (1)  short  paraphrases  reproducing 
Aristotle’s  own  opinions  in  strictly  systematic  order;  (2)  inter¬ 
mediate  commentaries  ;  and  (3)  complete  expositions  (these  last 
being  of  later  date  than  the  others).  All  these  three  types  are 
extant  in  the  case  of  the  Analytica  Posteriora ,  the  Physics ,  the 
De  Caelo ,  De  Anima  and  Metaphysics ;  (1)  and  (2)  alone  in  that 
of  Porphyry’s  Introduction,  the  Categories ,  De  Interpretations, 
Analytica  Prior  a,  Topica ,  Sophistici  Elenchi,  Rhetoric,  Poetic,  De 
Generatione  et  Corruptione ,  and  Meteorologica ;  (1)  alone  in  that 
of  the  Parva  Naturalia,  the  De  Partibus  Animalium  and  De 
Generatione  A nimalium ;  while  only  (2)  was  ever  written  on  the 
Ethics.  We  have  no  comments  of  his  on  the  Historia  Animalium 

1  Abd-el-Wahid  ap.  Renan,  Averroes,  174. 

2  Renan,  l.c.,  54*  f. 


542  AVICEBRON.  MAIMONIDES.  DANIEL  DE  MORLAI.  [CHAP. 


or  the  Politics.  The  former  had  already  been  abridged  by 
Avicenna,  and  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  latter  was  ever  translated 
into  Arabic  at  all.  Averroes  knew  neither  Greek  nor  Syriac,  but 
he  studied  Aristotle  in  Arabic  translations  of  Syriac  versions  of 
the  original  Greek,  and  the  printed  editions  of  his  commentaries 
reach  us  in  a  Latin  rendering  of  a  Hebrew  version  of  his  own 
Arabic1.  His  later  reputation  was  twofold.  He  was  the  great 
Commentator,  who  was  imitated  by  Thomas  Aquinas ;  and  the 
great  heretic ,  who  was  refuted  by  him2. 

The  Jewish  philosophy  of  the  Middle  Ages  included 
Alexandrian  and  Neo-Platonic  elements.  Neo-Platonic  as  well 
as  Aristotelian  influence  is  represented  by  the  Spanish  Jew, 
Solomon  Ibn  Gebirol  (c.  1020 — 1070),  who  wrote  in  Arabic  and 
has  been  identified  as  the  philosopher  known  to 
the  Schoolmen  as  Avicebron.  His  arguments 
assume  the  Neo-Platonic  theory  of  the  real  existence  of  all  that 
is  apprehended  by  means  of  universal  concepts.  He  was  not 
acquainted  with  Plotinus,  but  probably  derived  his  Neo-Platonic 
views  from  Arabic  translations  of  Proclus  and  of  works  erroneously 
ascribed  to  Empedocles,  Pythagoras  and  Aristotle.  The  recon¬ 
ciliation  of  Aristotelian  philosophy  with  Jewish  theology  was  the 
aim  of  Abraham  ben  David  of  Toledo  (c.  1150),  and  of  Moses 
Maimonides  of  Cordova  (1135-1204),  who  assigns 

Maimonides  .  ..  .  ,  ...  .. 

to  Aristotle  an  unlimited  authority  in  all  secular 
knowledge.  The  commentaries  on  Porphyry’s  Introduction  and 
on  Aristotle’s  Categories  and  De  Interpretatione  by  Levi  ben 
Gerson  (1288 — 1344)  are  printed  in  a  Latin  rendering  in  the 
old  Latin  editions  of  Aristotle.  Their  author  lived  in  the  South 
of  France. 

The  Arabs  and  the  Jews  did  great  service  by  inspiring  the 
students  of  the  West  with  a  new  enthusiasm  for  learning.  It  was 
through  learned  Jews,  acquainted  with  Latin  as  well  as  Arabic, 
that  Arabic  renderings  of  Aristotle  were  translated  into  Latin 
and  thus  came  to  the  knowledge  of  the  Schoolmen,  and  these 
translations  owed  their  popularity  to  the  fact  that  they  were  not 
only  literal  but  were  also  accompanied  by  explanations  of 
obscurities  in  the  original3. 

1  Renan,  l.c.,  52*.  2  See  plate  opp.  p.  560. 


3  Jourdain,  Recherches ,  16. 


XXX.]  TRANSLATORS  FROM  THE  ARABIC. 


543 


Daniel 
de  Morlai 


It  will  - be  remembered  that  the  centre  of  attraction  for  all 
translators  from  the  Arabic  in  this  age  was  Toledo1. 

Shortly  before  1200,  an  Englishman  named  Daniel 
de  Morlai  (of  Morley,  near  Norwich),  discontented 
with  the  dull  traditional  teaching  of  the  doctors  of  Paris 
{c.  1170 — 1190),  went  to  study  under  the  Arabs  at  Toledo  and 
came  back  to  England  ‘with  a  number  of  precious  mss’2, 
being  warmly  welcomed  on  his  return  by  John  of  Oxford, 
bishop  of  Norwich,  who  was  specially  interested  in  astronomy. 
He  had  at  first  hesitated  to  return  on  hearing  that  in  England 
‘there  was  no  liberal  education,  and  that,  to  make  way  for  Titius 
and  Seius,  Aristotle  and  Plato  were  forgotten’;  and  he  was  afraid 
lest  he  should  be  ‘the  only  Greek  among  the  Romans’3.  His 
only  extant  work  is  on  the  teaching  of  the  Arabians  as  to  the 
earth  and  as  to  the  orbs  of  heaven.  Among  the  translators  from 
the  Arabic  in  centuries  xn  and  xm  were  Gerard  of 

Translators 

Cremona,  Michael  Scot,  Hermann  the  German,  from  the 

•  t  ^Vi*cifoic 

and  Alfred  the  Englishman.  The  earliest  of  these, 

Gerard  of  Cremona4,  translated  the  Almagest  of  Ptolemy5,  and 


1  P*  539*  2  cum  pretiosa  multitudine  librorum. 

3  Pref.  to  De  Naturis  Inferiorum  et  Superiorum,  Arundel  MS  377  f,  printed 
by  Prof.  Holland  in  Oxford  Hist.  Soc.,  Collectanea ,  ii  1 7 1  f ;  cp.  H.  Morley’s 
English  Writers,  iii  187;  Rashdall,  i  323,  ii  338;  F.  A.  Gasquet,  Dublin  Rev., 

1898,  359. 

4  Roger  Bacon,  Comp.  Phil.  471.  Tiraboschi,  iii  192,  381,  and  Bon- 
compagni,  Vita  di  Gherardo  Cremonense  (1851),  distinguish  between  Gerard 
the  elder,  who,  according  to  the  Chronicle  of  Francesco  Pipino,  died  in  1187, 
and  Gerard  the  younger  (di  Sabbionetta,  S.E.  of  Cremona),  an  older  con¬ 
temporary  of  Hermann  the  German  (Hermann  was  still  alive  in  1271).  Guido 
Bonatti,  cent,  xm  (Boncompagni,  p.  65),  describes  as  his  own  contemporaries 
Michael  Scotus,  and  ‘  Girardus  de  Sabloneto  Cremonensis  ’.  But  the  difficul¬ 
ties  as  to  the  two  Gerards  are  not  yet  entirely  removed.  In  Boncompagni’s 
work  Gerard  the  elder  is  identified  with  the  translator,  and  Gerard  the  younger 
is  an  astronomer,  wdiereas  the  latter  alone  (whom  Roger  Bacon  describes  as  a 
translator)  could  have  been  a  contemporary  of  Hermann.  Possibly  there  is  a 
mistake  in  Pipino’s  date  for  the  death  of  Gerard  the  elder,  but  that  date  is 
repeated  in  several  MSS  of  his  Life  and  is  consistent  with  the  date  of  his 
translation  of  the  Almagest  (1175).  Accordingly,  it  appears  more  probable 
that,  in  Compend.  Philos,  c.  10,  Roger  Bacon  confounded  the  ‘  older  contem¬ 
porary  of  Hermann  ’  with  the  translator  of  cent.  XII. 

5  Charles,  Roger  Bacon,  331. 


544 


MICHAEL  SCOT. 


[CHAP. 


certain  works  of  Galen,  Hippocrates  and  Avicenna1.  His 
translations  were  executed  at  Toledo2.  The  next, 

Michael  Scot  .  . 

Michael  Scot,  is  said  to  have  studied  at  Oxford3, 
and  is  traditionally  associated  with  Bologna4.  He  was  certainly 
a  student  at  Paris,  and  probably  learned  Arabic  at  Palermo 
before  12095.  He  there  lived  at  the  brilliant  court  of  Frederic  II, 
the  youthful  King  of  Sicily,  to  whom  he  dedicated  three  of  his 
earliest  works.  On  the  marriage  of  Frederic  to  the  elder  daughter 
of  the  King  of  Aragon  (1209),  he  apparently  left  for  Toledo 
and  there  completed  a  rendering  of  two  Arabic  abstracts  of 
Aristotle’s  Historia  Animalium ,  (1)  De  Animalibus  ad  Caesarem 6, 
and  (2)  Abbreviate  Avicennae.  The  latter  was  dedicated  to 
Frederic  as  ‘Emperor  of  the  Romans  and  Lord  of  the  World’. 
As  Frederic  was  not  crowned  Emperor  at  Aachen  until  1215, 
it  is  impossible  to  assign  the  second  version  to  any  earlier  date7. 
In  1217  Michael  produced  a  translation  of  Alpetraugi’s  Arabic 
treatise  on  the  Sphere 8.  Between  that  date  and  his  return  to 
the  imperial  court  in  1223,  he  translated  the  commentaries  of 
Averroes  on  the  De  Caelo  and  the  De  Anima  of  Aristotle.  The 
versions  of  the  other  commentaries  of  Averroes  contained  in  the 
same  mss  as  the  above  were  doubtless  the  work  of  the  Toledo 
School  of  translators,  and  the  renderings  of  the  commentaries  on 
the  Physics  and  Metaphysics  may  well  be  assigned  to  Michael 

1  Dr  J.  F.  Payne,  in  Rashdall,  ii  780-2.  For  his  translations  from  Arabic 
versions  of  Aristotle,  see  p.  540  supra. 

2  e.g.  Vatican  MS  2089,  p.  307  v,  incipit  sextus  de  naturalibus  auicenae 
translatus  a  magistro  Girardo  cremonensi  de  arabico  in  latinum  in  toleto 
(J.  Wood  Brown,  Michael  Scot ,  p.  238). 

3  Jourdain,  Recherches,  125. 

4  Boccaccio,  Dec.  viii  9. 

5  J.  Wood  Brown,  p.  24. 

6  Caius  Coll,  ms  109  (178)  fol.  9-107.  Wiistenfeld,  Gott.  Abhandl.  102-6, 
holds  that  Michael  Scot  translated  from  a  Hebrew  rendering  of  Avicenna’s 
Arabic  abstract  of  the  Hist.  An. 

7  Mr  J.  Wood  Brown  (p.  55)  assigns  it  to  12 10,  and  so  reads  the  colophon  of 
Vat.  ms  4428,  p.  158;  but  in  his  own  facsimile  (opposite  p.  55)  I  notice  a 
straggling  v  above  the  end  of  M0c0c°x. 

8  Jourdain,  133;  Renan,  2084;  Brown,  99 — 105.  The  author  flourished 
c.  1190  and  was  a  pupil  of  Abubacer.  His  name,  which  is  spelt  in  several 
different  ways,  is  really  Ibn  el-Bitraugi  (from  Petroches,  N.  of  Cordova). 


y*’*’  «*••/  y'<* 


Christ  in  Glory 


St  Luke  St  Matthew  St  Paul  v"‘"  Moses  St  John  St  Mark 

St  Thomas  Aquinas 

Aristotle  .  ..  -  Plato 

Averroes 

Altar-piece  by  Traini  (1345),  in  the  Church  of  S.  Caterina,  Pisa. 
Reduced  from  Rosini’s  Pittura  Italiana ,  tav.  xx. 


XXX.] 


FREDERIC  THE  SECOND. 


545 


Scot,  who  is  attacked  by  Albertus  Magnus1  for  a  digression 
on  the  part  of  Averroes  stating  the  opinions  of  Nicholas  the 
Peripatetic2.  Frederic  II  was  crowned  at  Rome  in  1220,  and 
Michael  Scot  was  at  Bologna  on  21  Oct.,  12213,  and  had 
apparently  returned  to  the  imperial  court  at  Palermo  by  1223. 
He  was  highly  esteemed  as  an  astrologer  and  a  physician.  He 
was  even  recommended  for  ecclesiastical  preferment  in  England 
by  Honorius  III  (12244)  and  Gregory  IX  (12275),  the  latter 
attesting  his  proficiency  in  Arabic  and  Hebrew,  but  saying 
nothing  as  to  any  knowledge  of  Greek.  Roger  Bacon  who,  on 
the  authority  of  Hermann  the  German,  says  that  Scot  was 
ignorant  of  languages,  and  adds  that  he  was  largely  aided  by  a 
learned  Jew,  named  Andreas6,  describes  him  as  introducing  to  the 
scholars  of  the  West  certain  of  the  physical  and  mathematical  (?) 
works  of  Aristotle,  with  the  commentators  on  the  same.  Trans¬ 
lations  from  the  Arabic  are  doubtless  meant,  and  the  date  of 
their  introduction  is  ‘after  1230’7.  In  1232  the  emperor 
granted  special  permission  for  the  transcription  of  Michael  Scot’s 
Abbreviatio  Avicennae ,  the  second  of  the  two  works  in  which 
Scot  had  dealt  with  Aristotle’s  Historia  Animalium 8.  It  was 

1  Op.  ii  140. 

2  Haureau,  i  470;  Renan,  2094;  Brown,  127.  The  other  commentaries  of 
Averroes  in  the  Venice  MS  are  those  on  the  Meteorological  De  Gen.  et  Corr., 
Parva  Naturalia ,  and  the  apocryphal  De  Causis ;  also  the  original  work  De 
Substantia  Orbis  (Jourdain,  128 — 130;  Brown,  132).  In  the  St  Victor  MS  the 
Parva  Nat.  is  ascribed  to  Gerard  of  Cremona. 

3  Caius  Coll.  MS  109  (178)  fol.  102  k  has  a  transcript  of  the  translator’s 
note  to  the  De  Animalibus  ad  Caesarem\ — ‘  et  iuro  ego  Michael  Scotus  qui 
dedi  hunc  librum  latinitati  quod  in  anno  M°CC°XX°i,  xii  Ival.  Novembr.  die 
Mercurii  accessit  nobilior  domina  totius  civitatis  hononiensis  (sic),  quae  erat 
hospita  mea  &c  ’  (a  new  and  definite  date  in  Scot’s  career,  communicated  by 
Dr  M.  R.  James). 

4  Chartul.  Univ.  Paris ,  i  105.  5  ib.  1 10. 

6  Comp.  Phil.  472. 

7  Op.  Map.  36  f,  tempore  Michaelis  Scoti,  qui  annis  1230  transactis  apparuit 
deferens  librorum  Aristotelis  partes  aliquas  de  naturalibus  et  mathematicis  cum 
expositoribus  sapientioribus,  magnificata  est  Aristotelis  philosophia  apud 
Latinos.  Cp.  Jourdain,  128  f.  Bridges,  iii  66,  has  ‘de  Naturalibus  et 
Metaphysicis  (Bodl.  ms)  cum  expositionibus  authenticis  ’. 

8  Brown,  178. 

S. 


35 


546 


HERMANN  THE  GERMAN. 


[CHAP. 


apparently  not  long  after  1232  that  Frederic  II  sent  to  the 
universities  of  Bologna  and  Paris  the  translations  he  had  caused 
to  be  made  from  the  Greek  and  Arabic  mss  of  the  ‘works  of 
Aristotle  and  other  philosophers  relating  to  Mathematics  and 
Logic,’  which  were  contained  in  the  imperial  library1.  Copies 
of  the  emperor’s  letters  addressed  to  Bologna2  and  Paris3  have 
come  down  to  us,  and  it  is  possible  that  they  were  delivered  by 
Michael  Scot  himself,  who  may  also  have  visited  Oxford.  He 
died  before  12354,  and  tradition  places  his  burial,  as  well  as 
his  birth,  in  the  lowlands  of  Scotland.  With  his  fame  as  an 
alchemist,  astrologer  and  necromancer  we  are  not  here  concerned. 
His  reputed  skill  in  magic  has  been  celebrated  by  Dante5, 
Boccaccio6  and  Walter  Scott7. 

Hermann  the  German  completed  at  Toledo  in  1240 8  his 
translation  of  the  intermediate  commentary  of 
Averroes  on  the  Ethics ,  and,  at  some  other  date, 
a  translation  of  an  Arabic  abridgement  of  the 
Ethics  (possibly  the  work  of  Averroes).  His  work  on  the  Rhetoric 
consisted  simply  of  the  glosses  of  Alfarabi,  while  that  on  the 
Poetic  was  merely  the  abridgement  by  Averroes9.  It  was  only 
in  this  form  that  Aristotle’s  treatise  on  Poetry  was  known  to  the 
Middle  Ages.  These  slight  works  on  the  Rhetoric  and  Poetic 
bear  the  date  of  Toledo,  1256.  Frederic  II  had  died  in  1250, 


Hermann 
the  German 


1  Jourdain,  1 54  f,  163  f.  Prantl  ( Logik ,  iii  5)  assigns  this  to  1220.  It  is 
contended  that  Frederic  would  more  probably  have  communicated  with  Bo¬ 
logna  and  Paris  before  founding  his  own  university  at  Naples  (1224)  than  after. 

2  Petrus  de  Vineis,  Epp .  iii  67  (vol.  i  p.  432  ed.  Iselius,  1740). 

3  Chartul.  i  435  (in  the  name  of  Manfred) ;  cp.  Brown,  174. 

4  Henri  d’Avranches,  quoted  by  Brown,  p.  176.  The  date  of  the  treatise 
‘written  for  Manfred  in  1256’  may  be  that  of  the  Spanish  era,  corresponding 
to  1218,  and  may  refer  to  a  work  written  for  Frederic  II  in  1218,  and  after¬ 
wards  copied  for  Manfred  {Eng.  Hist.  Rev .,  1898,  p.  349). 

5  Inf.  xx  1 15-7. 

6  Dec .  viii  9. 

7  Notes  2  c — e  on  The  Lay. 

8  MS  Laur.  lxxix  18. 

9  Printed  at  Venice,  1481,  and  included  in  the  Venice  Aristotle  of  1560. 
Cp.  Roger  Bacon,  Op.  Maj.  59,  Comp.  Phil.  473;  Jourdain,  139 — 144; 
Charles,  Roger  Bacon ,  122  note  1,  and  329;  Wiistenfeld,  Gottingen  Abhandl. 
91-6. 


XXX.] 


ALFRED  THE  ENGLISHMAN. 


547 


and  the  date  of  1256  is  in  agreement  with  the  fact  that  Roger 
Bacon,  writing  in  12671,  describes  Hermann  as  a  translator  in 
the  service  of  ‘Manfred,  recently  conquered  by  king  Charles’  of 
Anjou  (1266)2.  Some  mss  of  the  above-mentioned  Letter  to  the 
Universities  bear  the  name  of  Manfred3,  who  may  have  re-issued 
his  father’s  Letter,  with  presentation  copies  of  the  translations 
made  in  his  own  time.  A  translation  of  the  Magna  Moralia  was 
dedicated  to  Manfred  by  Bartholomew  of  Messina4. 

The  last  of  these  translators  from  the  Arabic  is  Alfred  the 
Englishman  (fl.  1215-70),  chaplain  to  Cardinal 
Ottoboni  in  Rome  and  papal  legate  to  England  Englishman 
under  Henry  IIP.  He  quotes  Arabic  writers  and 
apparently  knew  no  Greek6.  He  produced  a  Latin  translation 
of  the  Arabic  version  of  the  Pseudo- Aristotelian  De  P/antis\  with 
a  short  supplementary  comment  on  the  same,  in  the  course  of 
which  he  quotes  the  De  generatione  et  corrupt ione,  the  Meteorologica, 
De  Anima  and  Analytica  Posteriora 8.  He  also  appears  to  have 
revised  the  first  translation  of  the  Meteorologica  and  to  have  inter¬ 
polated  that  translation  with  additions  of  his  own.  This  is  stated 
by  Roger  Bacon9,  who  had  a  very  low  opinion  of  all  these 
translators  from  the  Arabic,  including  ‘  William  the  Fleming  ’, 
to  whom  we  shall  return  at  a  later  point10. 

While  the  knowledge  of  Aristotle  had  thus  been  reaching  the 
scholars  of  the  West  through  the  circuitous  route  of  translations 
from  the  Arabic,  the  Latin  conquest  of  Constantinople  in  1204 
had  opened  to  those  scholars  the  prospect  of  a  direct  access  to 
the  stores  of  Greek  learning.  The  conquerors  themselves  regarded 
that  learning  with  contempt,  but  the  natural  result  of  their  con- 

1  Op.  Tertium ,  p.  91.  2  Renan,  Av .  211-54. 

3  Cp.  Denifle  on  Chartul.  (Jniv .  Paris.,  i  435  (Rashdall,  i  359). 

4  Tiraboschi,  iv  170. 

5  Bale,  s.v.  Alphredus  Anglicus,  p.  322,  ed.  1557;  Morley’s  Eng.  Writers , 
iii  187. 

6  Introd.  to  Roger  Bacon’s  Gk.  Gr.  (1902),  p.  li,  n.  5. 

7  p.  536  supra ;  quoted  by  Vincent  of  Beauvais  (1250),  Spec.  Nat.  ix 
pp.  91-2,  ed.  1494  (Wustenfeld,  /.  c.,  87  f.). 

8  Barach,  Bibl.  Philos.  Med.  Aet.  ii  n — 13,  113. 

9  ap.  Charles,  372b  The  ‘first  translation’  is  presumably  that  of  Gerard 
of  Cremona. 

10  pp-  563. 569 f- 


35—2 


548  TRANSLATIONS  FROM  THE  GREEK  ARISTOTLE.  [CHAP. 


quest  was  the  dispersion  of  Greek  mss,  some  of  which  found  their 
way  to  the  West.  The  only  evidence  as  to  any  mss  of  Aristotle 
having  been  brought  from  Constantinople  refers  to  the  Meta- 
physics \  but  the  Physics  is  probably  meant.  The  Schoolmen,  no 
longer  satisfied  with  renderings  from  the  Arabic  versions  of 
Aristotle,  began  to  obtain  translations  taken  directly  from  the 
Greek.  Thus  the  De  Anima  was  known  to  William  of  Auvergne 
(who  became  bishop  of  Paris  in  1228  and  was  still  alive  in 
1248)  in  a  translation  from  the  Greek,  before  the  Schools  of  Paris 
had  received  Michael  Scot’s  translation  either  of  the  Arabic  text2 
or  the  commentary  by  Averroes.  The  Rhetoric ,  the  Politics ,  the 
first  four  books  of  the  Nicomachean  Ethics,  the  Magna  Moralia , 
part  at  least  of  the  Metaphysics ,  and  the  Parva  Natnralia ,  were 
known  from  the  first  in  Latin  translations  from  the  original,  but 
the  earliest  complete  versions  of  the  Ethics  and  Metaphysics  (with 
those  of  the  Physics,  Hist.  Animalium,  De  Caelo  and  Meteorologica) 
were  from  the  Arabic3.  The  translations  from  the  Arabic  had 
been  often  disfigured  with  Arabic  words  merely  transliterated  into 
Latin,  because  their  meaning  was  unknown.  On  the  other  hand, 
those  from  the  Greek  were,  indeed,  slavishly  literal  and  not  always 
accurate,  but  they  had  at  least  the  advantage  of  bringing  the 
student  one  stage  nearer  to  the  original.  The  studies  of  the 
Schoolmen  were  greatly  extended  and  transformed  by  their  wider 
acquaintance  with  Aristotle,  as  well  as  with  the  partly  Neo- 
Platonic  and  partly  Aristotelian  writings  of  Arabian  and  Jewish 
philosophers.  The  Neo-Platonic  teaching  of  ‘  Dionysius  the 
Areopagite  ’,  as  represented  in  the  pantheistic  doctrine  of  Joannes 
Scotus,  was  revived  by  Amalrich  (of  Bena,  near  Chartres,  d.  1207), 
and  his  most  distinguished  follower4,  David  of  Dinant.  This 
revival  of  pantheism  was  probably  stimulated  in  part  by  the 
Aristotelian  commentary  of  Alexander  of  Aphrodisias  (translated 
by  Gerard  of  Cremona5),  and  by  the  pseudo- Aristotelian  Liber  de 
Causis 6.  Amalrich  was  already  in  his  grave  when  the  pantheistic 

1  p.  416  supra.  2  Jourdain,  170. 

3  Jourdain,  144,  177;  cp.  Rashdall,  i  359 f. 

4  See,  however,  Erdmann,  i  §  192. 

5  Jourdain,  Recherches ,  123  f,  and  C.  Jourdain,  Mem.  de  PAcad.  d'Inscr. 
26  (1867),  493,  497.' 

6  Haureau,  11  i  103  f. 


XXX.] 


STUDY  OF  ARISTOTLE  FORBIDDEN. 


549 


drift  of  his  writings  was  discovered.  As  the  result  of  a  Council 
held  in  Paris  in  1210,  his  doctrines  were  condemned,  his  bones 
disinterred,  and  ten  of  his  followers  burnt  alive1.  At  the  same 
time,  it  was  ordered  that  ‘neither  the  books  of  Aristotle  on 
natural  philosophy,  nor  comments  on  the  same,  should  be  read, 
either  privately  or  publicly’2.  It  is  uncertain  whether  the  ‘books 
of  Aristotle  ’  were  his  own  Physics ,  or  one  of  the  Arabic  adapta¬ 
tions  of  the  same,  e.g.  that  of  Avicenna  or  Averroes3,  or  some 
Pseudo-Aristotelian  work,  such  as  the  De  Causis  or  the  De 
secretiore  Aegyptiorum  doctrina 4.  Guillaume  le  Breton  inaccurately 
reports  that  it  was  the  metaphysical  (probably  meaning  the  physical) 
writings  of  Aristotle,  recently  brought  from  Constantinople  and 
translated  from  Greek  into  Latin,  which  were  burnt  and  proscribed 
in  1209  (sic)5.  In  1215  the  Statutes  drawn  up  for  the  university 
of  Paris  by  the  papal  legate  order  the  study  of  the  Aristotelian 
books  on  Dialectic,  while  they  forbid  the  study  of  the  Physics 
and  Metaphysics  (the  latter  being  now  mentioned  for  the  first 
time  in  a  public  document)6 7.  Roger  Bacon  states  that  the 
opponents  of  the  study  of  Aristotle  brought  against  that  philo¬ 
sopher  (in  connexion  with  his  belief  in  the  eternity  of  the  world) 
a  passage  at  the  end  of  the  De  generatione  et  corruption e1 .  The 

1  See  the  miniature  in  Lacroix,  Vie...Religieuse  an  Moyen  Age ,  p.  445. 

2  Denifle  and  Chatelain,  Chartularium  Univ.  Paris,  i  70,  with  Denifle’s  n., 
‘  Inter  auctores  ante  concilium  mortuos  inveni  citatos  libros  De  Metaphysica... 
Absque  dubio  erant  etiam  noti  libri  Physicorum  et  forsan  De  Caelo  et  Mundo'. 
See  Giraldus  Cambr.  on  p.  522  stcpra.  Cp.  Haureau,  11  i  101 ;  Ueberweg,  i 
431;  and  literature  in  Rashdall,  i  356  n. 

3  So  Jourdain,  Haureau  and  Denifle.  Ce  qui  reste  indubitable  (says  Renan, 
22 14),  c'est  que  le  concile  de  1209  [1210]  frappa  PAristote  arabe ,  traduit  de 
Parabe ,  explique  par  les  Arabes. 

4  Cp.  Charles,  Roger  Bacon,  p.  313. 

5  p.  416  supra.  Cp.  Launoy,  De  varia  Aristotelis  in  acad.  Paris,  fortuna 
(1653)*  c-  1  5  Jourdain,  187. 

6  Chartul.  i  78  f,  ‘  non  legantur  libri  Aristotelis  de  inethafisica  et  de  naturali 
philosophia,  nec  summae  de  eisdem ’.  Cp.  Roger  Bacon,  Opus  Majus,  p.  14, 
‘  temporibus  nostris  Parisius  diu  fuit  contradictum  naturali  philosophiae  Aris¬ 
totelis  per  Avicennae  et  Averrois  expositores,  et  ob  densam  ignorantiam 
fuerunt  libri  eorum  excommunicati  ’ ;  Op.  Tert.  p.  28,  and  Comp.  Theol. 
(p.  570  infra). 

7  ap.  Charles,  Roger  Bacon ,  315,  note  1. 


550 


STUDY  OF  ARISTOTLE  ALLOWED. 


[CHAP. 


fact  that  this  is  one  of  Aristotle’s  works  on  ‘natural  philosophy’ 
may  have  led  to  all  his  works  on  that  subject  being  condemned 
at  the  same  time  as  the  Metaphysics' .  In  1220  we  vaguely  hear 
of  a  translation  of  Aristotle,  partly  from  the  Greek,  partly  from 
the  Arabic,  by  those  who  knew  both1 2 3.  From  1228  to  1231, 
owing  to  a  conflict  between  the  university  and  the  citizens  of 
Paris,  the  members  of  the  former  withdrew  to  other  places.  On 
their  return  in  1231,  Gregory  IX  directed  that  ‘the  libri  naturales 
...should  not  be  used  until  they  had  been  examined  and  revised’3. 
This  implied  a  considerable  mitigation  of  the  severe  sentences 
passed  on  the  study  of  Aristotle  in  1210  and  1215.  Between 
1230  and  1240  his  reputation  was  so  much  enhanced  by  the 
introduction  of  his  philosophical  (as  contrasted  with  his  dialectical ) 
works,  that  he  was  recognised  as  the  ‘prince  of  philosophers’4. 
All  his  works  began  to  be  expounded  in  Paris  by  the  most 
eminent  doctors  of  the  Church,  such  as  Albertus  Magnus  (1245) 
and  Thomas  Aquinas  (1257) ;  and,  in  1255,  even  the  Physics  and 
Metaphysics  were  included  among  the  subjects  prescribed  in  the 
Faculty  of  Arts  at  the  University  of  Paris5. 

Meanwhile,  the  monks  had  long  ceased  to  be  the  sole 
educators  of  Europe,  the  line  of  great  monastic  teachers  having 
ended  with  the  name  of  Anselm,  who  ceased  to  be  abbot  of 
Bee  in  1093.  A  generation  later  the  monasteries  began  to  close 
their  doors  against  secular  students6.  Even  the  revival  of 
monasticism  and  the  reforms  of  the  twelfth  century  were  of  no 
permanent  avail  for  the  promotion  of  learning.  The  control  of 
education  passed  from  the  monks  and  the  monastic  schools  to 
the  secular  clergy  and  the  cathedral  schools 7 ;  and  the  cathedral 

1  Charles,  315.  The  eternity  of  the  world  is  also  maintained  in  Physics, 
viii  1. 

2  Jourdain,  7. 

3  Chartul.  i  138,  ‘(magistri  artium)  libris  illis  naturalibus  qui  in  concilio 
provinciali  ex  certa  causa  prohibiti  fuere,  Parisius  non  utantur,  quousque 
examinati  fuerint  et  ab  omni  errorum  suspitione  purgati’;  cp.  Haureau,  II  i 
108  f. 

4  Jourdain,  28.  5  Chartul.  i  278. 

6  Rashdall,  i  42. 

7  Cp.  Leon  Maitre,  Les  Pcoles  episcopates  ct  Monastiques  (768—1180),  1866, 

esp.  p.  169. 


XXX.] 


ALEXANDER  OF  HALES. 


551 


school  of  Notre-Dame,  which  was  already  famous  under  William 
of  Champeaux  (c.  1100),  developed  into  the  university  of  Paris 
(c.  1170)1.  The  Order  of  the  Franciscans  was  founded  at  Assisi 
in  1210,  and  that  of  the  Dominicans  at  Toulouse  in  1215;  and 
both  of  these  Orders,  whose  centre  of  activity  was  in  the  towns, 
resolved  on  establishing  themselves  at  the  great  seats  of  education. 
The  Dominicans,  who  were  characterised  by  a  strictly  conservative 
orthodoxy,  fixed  their  head-quarters  at  Bologna  and  at  Paris 
(1217),  besides  forming  a  settlement  at  Oxford  (1221).  The 
Franciscans,  who  were  generally  less  highly  intellectual  than  the 
Dominicans,  and  less  strongly  opposed  to  novel  forms  of  opinion2, 
settled  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge  in  1224,  and  at  Paris  in  12303. 
A  long  struggle  between  both  of  these  Orders  and  the  university 
of  Paris  ended  in  their  having  certain  restricted  rights  in  connexion 
with  that  university  in  12614.  When  once  these  Orders  had  been 
founded,  all  the  great  Schoolmen  were  either  Franciscans  or 
Dominicans5. 

The  first  of  the  Schoolmen  who  was  familiar  with  the  whole 
range  of  Aristotle’s  philosophy,  and  with  his  Arabic 
commentators,  and  who  employed  the  same  in  the  0fAHaiesder 
service  of  theology,  was  Alexander  of  Hales,  who 
derived  his  name  from  a  place  in  the  N.  of  Gloucestershire,  now 
known  as  Hailes,  near  Winchcombe.  He  joined  the  Franciscan 
Order  in  Paris  in  1231,  on  the  return  of  the  university  from  the 
dispersion  of  12296 7,  and,  after  a  distinguished  scholastic  career, 
died  in  1245  \  He  is  a  representative  of  Realism.  His  ponderous 
Summa  Theologiae ,  left  unfinished  at  his  death,  was  completed  by 

1  ib.  p.  145  ;  Compayre,  Abelard ,  6 — 8  ;  Rashdall,  i  277  f. 

2  Renan,  Averroes ,  p.  259^  En  general,  l’ecole  franciscaine  nous  apparait 
comme  beaucoup  moins  orthodoxe  que  l’ecole  dominicaine.  Cp.  V.  Le  Clerc, 
Hist.  Litt .  de  la  France  au  \\e  siecle,  pp.  97 — 144,  esp.  p.  129  f. 

3  Rashdall,  i  346  f.  4  ib.  369 — 392. 

5  The  great  work  on  the  writers  of  the  Franciscan  Order  is  Wadding, 
Annales  Minorum ,  6  folio  vols.  (1625  f),  ed.  2  in  25  vols.  (1731 — 1886).  That 

on  the  Dominicans  is  Quetif  et  Echard,  Scriptores  Ordinis  Praedicatorum , 
2  folio  vols.  (1719  f). 

6  Bacon,  Op.  Minus ,  326  Brewer,  where  his  Summa  is  bitterly  attacked. 

7  He  is  lamented  by  Joannes  de  Garlandia,  De  Myst.  Eccl.,  as  the  ‘  flos 
philosophiae  ’  etc. 


552 


WILLIAM  OF  AUVERGNE. 


[CHAP. 


Edmund  Rich 


William 
of  Auvergne 


others  in  1252.  It  shows  the  influence  of  the  Eastern  Arabs 
Avicenna  and  Algazel  far  more  than  that  of  the  Western  Arab 
Averroes1.  The  commentary  on  the  Metaphysics,  once  ascribed 
to  him,  is  now  recognised  as  the  work  of  another  Franciscan, 
Alexander  of  Alexandria.  In  the  University  Library  at  Cam¬ 
bridge2,  a  ms  of  Alexander  of  Hales’  exposition  of  the  Apocalypse, 
certainly  belonging  to  his  time  and  possibly  written  by  his  own 
hand,  includes  a  portrait  of  the  author  represented  kneeling  in 
the  habit  of  a  Franciscan  friar3. 

Another  Englishman,  Edmund  Rich,  born  in  Berks,  and 
afterwards  archbishop  of  Canterbury  (1235-40), 
canonised  as  St  Edmund  of  Abingdon,  w*as  the 
first  to  expound  the  Sophistici  Elenchi  at  Oxford4.  The  ideology 
and  cosmology  of  Plato  were  taught  in  Paris  by  William  of 
Auvergne  (d.  1249),  who  knew  the  Phaedo  and 
the  Timaeus  alone,  and  wrote  works  De  Universo 
and  De  Anima  largely  founded  on  Aristotle, 
quoting  the  Physics ,  Metaphysics ,  De  Atiima ,  Ethics  etc.  in  Latin 
translations,  though  he  had  little  confidence  in  Aristotle’s  diciab. 
He  denounces  as  heretical  a  number  of  propositions  mainly  taken 
from  the  Pseudo-Aristotelian  De  Causis,  and  frequently  attacks 
Averroism  under  the  name  of  Aristotle  and  his  followers,  but  he 
only  mentions  the  name  of  Averroes  once  (when  he  calls  him  a 
‘most  noble  philosopher’6),  while  he  has  many  quotations  from 
Aristotle  himself7.  John  of  Rochelle,  who,  as  the 
pupil  and  successor  of  Alexander  of  Hales,  taught 
at  Paris  from  1245  to  1253,  shows  his  familiarity 
with  the  De  Anima  of  Aristotle,  and  its  Greek  and  Arabic 
expositors,  in  a  treatise  bearing  the  same  name  and  exemplifying 
a  new  interest  in  the  study  of  psychology8. 

Platonic  and  Aristotelian  doctrines  were  combined  by 
the  eminent  Franciscan  Robert  Grosseteste 
(c.  1175 — 1253),  bishop  of  Lincoln,  and  the 

earliest  recorded  chancellor  of  Oxford,  who  was  born  at 


John 

of  Rochelle 


Grosseteste 


1  Renan,  Averroes,  224“*.  2  Mm.  v.  31. 

3  J.  R.  Green’s  Short  History,  illustr.  ed.,  p.  287.  4  pp.  567,  570. 

5  Haureau,  11  i  145..  6  De  Univ.  i  85.1 ;  Renan,  Av.,  22^-p. 

7  Jourdain,  31,  288-99.  8  Haureau,  II  i  192. 


XXX.] 


GROSSETESTE. 


553 


Stradbroke  in  Suffolk,  and  educated  at  Oxford  and  (possibly) 
at  Paris.  About  1199  Giraldus  Cambrensis1  commends  him 
as  one  whose  education  had  been  ‘built  on  the  foundation  of  the 
liberal  arts  and  on  an  abundant  knowledge  of  literature’.  He 
was  appointed  lecturer  to  the  Franciscans  shortly  after  their 
establishment  in  Oxford  in  12 24s.  His  contemporary,  Matthew 
Paris,  writing  at  St  Albans,  then  the  centre  of  classical  learning 
in  England,  describes  him  as  vir  in  Latino  et  Graeco  peritissimus3 , 
and  states  that  in  his  Greek  studies  he  was  assisted  by  a  Greek 
monk  of  St  Albans  named  Nicholas4.  His  great  admirer,  Roger 
Bacon,  while  he  states  much  to  his  credit,  assures  us  that,  until 
the  latter  part  of  his  life5,  his  knowledge  of  Greek  was  not 
sufficient  to  enable  him  to  translate  from  that  language,  and  that 
he  could  never  translate  from  either  Greek  or  Hebrew  without 
assistance6.  He  also  tells  us  that  Grosseteste  entirely  neglected 
the  works  of  Aristotle7;  but  the  context  seems  to  show  that  this 
statement  should  be  limited  to  the  current  translations  of  Arabic 
versions  of  certain  of  the  physical  treatises  alone8.  It  was 
probably  during  his  life  at  Oxford  that  he  prepared  his  com¬ 
mentaries  on  the  Categories,  Analytics 9  and  Sophistici  Elenchi. 
He  had  access  to  translations  of  the  Posterior  Analytics  besides 
that  of  Boethius,  and  he  was  also  acquainted  with  the  commentary 
of  Themistius10.  He  drew  up  a  summary  of  the  Physics ,  with  a 
commentary  on  the  same11,  and  a  few  notes  on  the  Consolatio  of 
Boethius.  Further,  he  supplied  the  Western  Church  with  ‘  trans¬ 
lations’  from  ‘Dionysius  the  Areopagite’  and  John  of  Damascus12. 

I  i  249  Brewer.  2  Mon.  Franc,  i  37. 

3  Hist.  Angl.  ii  467  Madden. 

4  Chron.  Maj.  iv  233  Luard.  5  Op.  Tert.  91. 

6  Comp.  Phil.  472.  7  ib.  469. 

8  Cp.  F.  S.  Stevenson’s  Robert  Grosseteste ,  p.  41. 

9  That  on  the  Anal.  Post.,  which  was  tacitly  utilised  by  Albertus  Magnus 
(Stevenson,  p.  55),  was  printed  six  times  between  1494  and  1552. 

10  i  10,  littera  aliarum  translationum  et  sententia  Themistii  neutri  praedict- 
arum  sententiarum  videtur  concordari  (Prantl,  Logik ,  iii  85). 

II  Printed  at  Venice,  1498. 

12  Bacon,  Comp.  Phil.  474.  Grosseteste’s  commentary  on  Dionysius  is 
printed  in  the  Opera  Dion.  Areop.  264 — 271,  Argent.  1503.  His  ‘translation’ 
of  John  of  Damascus  is  apparently  a  commentary  on  Burgundio’s  version  of 
the  De  Fide  Orthodoxa. 


554 


GROSSETESTE. 


[CHAP. 


It  was  under  his  direction  that  in  1242  Nicholas  of  St  Albans 
translated  the  Testaments  of  the  Twelve  Patriarchs  from  a  ms 
lately  brought  from  Athens  by  the  bishop’s  own  archdeacon,  John 
of  Basingstoke1,  which  has  been  identified  with  a  ms  of  the  tenth 
century  in  the  Cambridge  University  Library2.  No  less  than 
31  copies  of  the  Latin  version  of  this  apocryphal  work  are 
in  existence,  one  of  them  transcribed  for  the  abbey  of  St  Albans 
by  Matthew  Paris3,  who  has  further  transcribed  for  us  the  Greek 
numerals  introduced  by  John  of  Basingstoke4.  The  name  of  Grosse¬ 
teste  has  also  been  connected  with  the  Greek  romance  of  Asenath, 
the  patriarch  Joseph’s  Egyptian  wife,  the  Latin  version  of  which 
has  been  preserved  by  Vincent  of  Beauvais 5.  In  the  Compendium 
Scientiarum  Grosseteste  classified  all  the  departments  of  knowledge 
recognised  in  his  day,  and  a  ms  of  his  Summa  Philosophiae  in 
the  Cambridge  Library  contains  twenty  chapters  identical  with 
the  encyclopaedia  in  question6.  All  the  above  works  probably 
belong  to  the  time  between  1239  and  1244.  At  the  latter  date, 
Grosseteste  quotes  from  the  Nicomachean  Ethics\  and  not  (as 
before)  from  the  Eudemian 8.  It  is  uncertain  whether  he  actually 
translated  the  former;  a  translation  and  exposition  of  the  same, 
ascribed  to  Grosseteste,  was  once  in  the  Library  of  the  Jacobins 
in  the  Rue  St  Honore,  Paris9.  M.  Charles,  however,  refuses  to 
believe  that  the  translation  was  executed  by  Grosseteste10.  But  it 
may  be  pointed  out  that  he  certainly  caused  a  copy  of  the  Ethics 
(doubtless  in  the  form  of  a  Latin  translation)  to  be  transcribed 
for  him,  and  that  he  was  asked  to  lend  this  copy  to  a  Franciscan 
in  London  in  1251 11 ;  also  that  Hermann  the  German,  who 
finished  his  translation  of  the  Arabic  commentary  of  Averroes 
on  the  Ethics  in  1240,  states,  in  the  preface  to  his  rendering  of 

I  p.  41 3  supra .  2  Ff.  1.  24. 

3  British  Museum,  Royal  mss  4  d  vii ;  facsimile  in  Hardy’s  Descriptive  Cat . 
iii,  plate  9. 

4  Ckron.  Maj.  v  285. 

5  Spec.  Hist,  i  c.  118 — 122;  M.  R.  James,  in  Carnb.  Mod.  Hist,  i  586. 

6  Ii.  III.  19.  7  Ep.  106. 

8  Epp.  94,  101,  9  Jourdain,  Recherches ,  59. 

10  Roger  Bacon ,  328. 

II  Adam  Marsh’s  Ep.  in  Brewer’s  Mon.  Franc,  i  114,  librum  ethicorum 
Aristotelis  quem  scribi  fecistis  vestra  gratia  etc. 


XXX.] 


GROSSETESTE. 


555 


Alfarabi’s  comments  on  the  Rhetoric  in  1256,  that  his  work  on  the 
Ethics  had  been  rendered  useless  by  Grosseteste’s  translations  of 
the  latter  from  the  original  Greek1.  It  may  therefore  be  inferred 
that  a  Latin  translation  of  the  Greek  text  of  the  Ethics  was  known 
under  the  name  of  Grosseteste,  having  probably  been  executed 
under  his  direction  between  1240  and  1244  by  one  of  the  Greeks 
whom  he  had  invited  to  England.  A  Latin  rendering  of  the 
important  ‘middle  recension’  of  the  Epistles  of  Ignatius,  con- 
jecturally  attributed  to  Grosseteste  by  Ussher  (1644),  is  definitely 
assigned  to  him  in  a  ms  at  Tours2.  This  translation  betrays 
some  acquaintance  with  the  Lexicon  of  Suidas3,  renderings  from 
which  are  ascribed  to  Grosseteste  by  John  Boston  of  Bury. 
These  renderings  consisted  of  only  a  few  of  the  biographical 
articles,  but  even  the  fact  that  he  possessed  such  a  work  is  worthy 
of  notice.  The  translations  drawn  up  for  his  use  by  others  were 
apparently  extremely  literal,  while  in  those  executed  by  himself 
he  was  content  to  give  the  general  sense  of  the  original4.  He 
was  not  strong  in  verbal  scholarship ;  he  had  strange  ideas  on  the 
etymology  of  monachus  and  the  meaning  of  Therapeutae 5 ;  but,  on 
his  death-bed,  he  showed  that  he  held  orthodox  views  on  the 
derivation  of  ‘  heresy  ’,  and,  even  in  his  last  hours,  he  could 
aptly  apply  to  the  Mendicant  Orders  the  line  of  Juvenal,  cantabit 
vacuus  coram  latrone  viator 6.  In  his  Letters  he  frequently  quotes 
Horace7,  Ovid8  and  Seneca9.  ‘Probably  no  one’  (in  the  language 
of  their  editor,  Dr  Luard)  ‘has  had  a  greater  influence  upon 
English  thought  and  English  literature  for  the  two  centuries  that 

1  Reverendus  pater,  magister  Robertus,  Lincolniensis  episcopus,  ex  primo 
fonte  unde  emanaverat,  Graeco  videlicet,  ipsum  librum  est  completius  inter- 
pretatus,  et  Graecorum  commentis  praecipuas  annexens  notulas  commentatus 
(Jourdain,  140;  cp.  Renan,  Av .,  2124). 

2  Lightfoot,  Apostolic  Fathers ,  11  i  76s  f. 

3  Val.  Rose  in  Hermes,  v  155 ;  Brit.  Mus.  Royal  8  b  i  (M.  R.  James,  Bibl. 
Buriensis,  p.  76). 

4  Ep.  57  (Stevenson,  p.-  225). 

5  Epp.  p.  173  Luard. 

6  Matth.  Paris,  Chron.  Maj.  v  40of. 

7  Sat.  i  7,  3;  Ep.  i  1,  60  ;  A.  P.  25. 

8  Ars  Am.  i  655  ;  Rem.  Am.  91  ;  Her.  v  7  ;  Ex  Ponto  ii  6,  38  (twice). 

9  Epp.  23,  35,  67  (all  on  p.  23). 


556 


ADAM  MARSH. 


[CHAP. 


followed  his  age  Wycliffe  actually  ranks  Democritus,  Plato, 
Augustine  and  Grosseteste  above  Aristotle1;  and  Gower  calls  him 
‘the  grete  clerc  Grossteste’2.  Apart  from  his  important  services 
as  a  reformer  and  a  statesman,  he  fully  deserves  the  credit  of 
having  given  ‘a  powerful  impulse  to  almost  every  department  of 
intellectual  activity,  revived  the  study  of  neglected  languages,  and 
grasped  the  central  idea  of  the  unity  of  knowledge’3.  He  also 
deserves  to  be  remembered  as  one  of  the  earliest  leaders  of 
thought  at  Oxford,  as  a  promoter  of  Greek  learning,  and  as  an 
interpreter  of  Aristotle,  who  went  far  beyond  his  master  in  the 
experimental  knowledge  of  physical  science4.  The  mss  which  he 
bequeathed  to  the  Franciscans  at  Oxford  have  almost  entirely 
vanished,  but  his  copy  of  St  Augustine  De  Civitate  Dei  is  still 
carefully  preserved  in  the  Bodleian5. 

When  Walter  de  Merton,  the  founder  of  the  College  bearing 
his  name  at  Oxford  (1264),  applied  to  Grosseteste 

Adam  Marsh 

for  subdeacon  s  orders,  he  presented  a  letter  of 
introduction  from  Grosseteste’s  friend  Adam  de  Marisco6,  or 
Adam  Marsh  (d.  1258),  who  entered  the  Franciscan  order  shortly 
after  1226,  and  was  unsuccessfully  nominated  bishop  of  Ely  in 
opposition  to  Hugh  Balsham,  the  future  founder  of  Peterhouse, 
the  earliest  of  the  Colleges  of  Cambridge  (1284).  Adam  Marsh 
was  the  first  Franciscan  who  lectured  at  Oxford.  His  Letters  (in 
the  course  of  which  he  writes  to  Cambridge  for  parchment  to 
supply  the  needs  of  the  Franciscans  at  Oxford7)  contain  only  one 
verbal  reminiscence  of  the  Classics8,  and  his  style  is  far  less 
classical  than  that  of  his  friend  Grosseteste.  But  the  attainments 
of  both  of  these  early  Franciscans  are  warmly  eulogised  by  a 

1  Trials  iv  c.  3  (Stevenson,  p.  335). 

2  Conf.  Am.  iv  234. 

3  Stevenson,  p.  337. 

4  Roger  Bacon,  Op.  Tert.  469  (Rashdali,  i  521).  Cp.  Mullinger,  i  84 f, 

153  f,  and  (in  general)  F.  S.  Stevenson’s  Robert  Grosseteste  (1899),  and  the 
literature  there  quoted.  .  : 

5  No.  198. 

6  Mon.  Franc,  i,  Ep.  242. 

7  Mon.  Franc,  i  391. 

8  ib.  274,  propter  causam  vivendi,  vivendi  finem  facere  (Juv.  viii  84). 


XXX.]  BONAVENTURA.  VINCENT  OF  BEAUVAIS.  557 


younger  member  of  the  same  Order,  their  pupil  Roger  Bacon1. 
Among  their  contemporaries  abroad,  the  teaching 
of  Plato  (as  represented  by  the  Neo-Platonists  and 
Augustine)  was  followed  in  preference  to  that  of  Aristotle  by  the 
pupil  of  Alexander  of  Hales  and  the  immediate  successor  (in 
1253)  of  John  of  Rochelle,  the  mystical  Franciscan,  Bonaventura 
(1221 — 1274). 

In  the  Dominican  Order  the  most  learned  scholar  of  this  age 
was  Vincent  of  Beauvais  (d.  1264),  tutor  to  the 
sons  of  Louis  IX,  who  took  pleasure  in  reading  of  Beauvais 
Vincent’s  works  and  in  collecting,  in  the  Library 
at  the  Sainte  Chapelle,  all  the  mss  needed  for  their  composition. 
Vincent  is  best  known  in  connexion  with  the  Speculum  Mundi ,  a 
vast  encyclopaedia  divided  into  four  parts  distinguished  by  the 
epithets  Naturale ,  Doctrinale  ( c .  1250),  Historiale  (c.  1254)  and 
Morale  (doubtless  by  a  later  writer,  c.  13 10-20) 2.  The  spirit 
in  which  he  prepared  his  colossal  work  may  be  discerned  in  the 
opening  words  of  his  preface: — 

‘  Quoniam  multitudo  librorum  et  temporis  brevitas,  memoriae  labilitas,  non 
patitur  cuncta,  quae  scripta  sunt,  pariter  animo  comprehendi,  mihi,  omnium 
fratrum  minimo,  plurimorum  libros  assidue  revolventi,  ac  longo  tempore 
studiose  legenti,  visum  est  tandem  (accedente  etiam  majorum  meorum  consilio) 
quosdam  flores  pro  modulo  ingenii  mei  electos,  ex  omnibus  fere  quos  legere 
potui,  sive  nostrorum,  id  est,  Catholicorum  Doctorum,  sive  gentilium,  scilicet 
Philosophorum  et  Poetarum  et  ex  utrimque  Historiarum,  in  unum  corpus 
voluminis  quodam  compendio  et  ordine  summatim  redigere.’ 

In  compiling  the  Speculum  Naturale ,  he  had  the  assistance  of 
many  members  of  his  Order,  who  made  the  extracts  required  for 
his  purpose.  In  reference  to  his  omnivorous  reading  he  is  justly 
described  as  a  librorum  helluo .  The  number  of  authors  cited  by 
him  in  the  Speculum  Naturale  alone  is  as  many  as  350,  with 
100  more  in  the  Speculum  Doctrinale  and  Historiale ;  but,  his 
knowledge  of  these  authors  being  far  from  profound,  he  is 
sometimes  landed  in  curious  mistakes.  Thus  he  supposes  that 

1  Op.  Tert.  75,  perfecti  in  sapientia  divina  et  humana,  and  70.  Cp.  (on 
both)  Pauli’s  Abhandlung  (Tubingen,  1864);  also  (on  Marsh)  Little’s  Grey 
Friars  at  Oxford,  134-9,  and  Stevenson’s  Grosseteste ,  76  f. 

2  Printed  at  Strassburg,  1473-  ,  Nuremberg,  1483-6,  Venice,  1494  ;  also 
at  Douai,  1624.  Separate  ed.  of  Spec.  Hist.  Augsburg  (and  Paris),  1474. 


558 


ALBERTUS  MAGNUS. 


\ 


[CHAP. 


there  were  two  authors  bearing  the  name  of  Sophocles  and  only 
one  of  the  name  of  Seneca,  while  he  actually  describes  Cicero  as 
a  Roman  general1.  He  knew  no  Greek:  he  calls  the  emperor 
Isaac  Angelus  Conrezach  (ed.  1474)  or  Corezas  (ed.  1624),  obviously 
a  corruption  of  K vp  ’Io-aa*2.  He  supplies  us,  however,  with 
valuable  evidence  as  to  the  successive  stages  which  marked  the 
translation  of  the  ‘Aristotelian’  writings  into  the  Latin  language. 
Thus,  for  the  Organon ,  he  uses  the  old  rendering  from  the  Greek, 
by  Boethius ;  that  from  the  Arabic  in  the  Historia  Animalium , 
De  Plantis ,  De  Caelo  et  Mu?ido ,  and  in  all  except  Book  IV  of  the 
Meteorologica ;  the  recent  rendering  from  the  Greek  in  the  Parva 
Naturalia ,  the  Physics,  Metaphysics ,  De  Anima  and  Ethics ,  while 
he  never  quotes  the  Politics 3.  In  the  case  of  Tibullus,  he  derives 
his  quotations  from  certain  excerpts  earlier  in  date  than  any 
complete  ms  of  that  author  now  in  existence4. 

In  this  age  the  great  exponents  of  Aristotle  among  the 
Schoolmen  were  the  two  Dominicans,  Albertus 
Magnus  (1193 — 1280)  and  his  famous  pupil 
Thomas  Aquinas  (1225—7 — 1274).  The  former, 
a  Suabian  by  birth,  was  a  student  at  Padua  and  Bologna,  and 
taught  at  Paris  (near  the  narrow  street  still  called  the  Rue  de 
Maitre-Alberf),  and  also  at  the  great  school  of  the  German 
Dominicans  at  Cologne.  He  was  the  first  of  his  Order  to  teach 
philosophy  and  the  first  of  the  Schoolmen  to  state  the  philosophy 
of  Aristotle  in  a  systematic  form,  with  constant  reference  to  the 
Arabic  commentators.  Without  neglecting  the  Platonic  and 


Albertus 

Magnus 


1  Graf,  Roma ,  ii  178;  cp.  Hist.  Lift,  de  la  France,  xviii  482  f,  and  Bartoli’s 
Precursori,  29 — 31. 

2  Spec.  Hist,  xxix  64;  Gidel,  274.  Cp.  Hallam,  Lit.  i  1174;  Boutaric, 
Vincent  de  B.  et  la  connaissance  de  P antiquite  classique  an  xiiie  s.  (1875)  in  Rev. 
des  quest,  hist.  xvii. 

3  Jourdain,  33,  360-72. 

4  O.  Richter,  De  Vincentii  Bellovacensis  excerptis  Tibullianis  (1865).  On 
the  later  literature,  see  Bursian’s  Jahresb.  li  318.  The  influence  of  the 
mediaeval  encyclopaedias  of  Vincent  de  Beauvais,  Brunetto  Latini  and 
Bartholomaeus  Anglicus  on  western  literature,  and  especially  on  German 
poetry  in  cent,  xiv — xv,  is  indicated  in  Liliencron’s  Festrede  (Mtinchen, 
1876).  Cp.  Hist.  Litt.  de  la  France,  xviii  449 — 519,  and  F.  C.  Schlosser 
(1819), 


XXX.] 


ALBERTUS  MAGNUS. 


559 


Neo-Platonic  writings  (so  far  as  they  were  known  to  him),  he 
paid  special  attention  to  Aristotle,  all  of  whose  works  were 
accessible  to  him  in  Latin  translations  either  from  the  Arabic  or 
the  Greek  or  both.  Thus,  in  the  case  of  the  De  Anima  and  the 
Physics ,  he  is  able  to  quote  a  rendering  from  the  Greek  which  is 
purer  in  its  Latinity  than  that  of  the  Arabic-Latin  version  of  the 
fourth  book  De  Cae/o,  where  the  Latin  is  largely  interspersed  with 
transliterations  from  the  Arabic.  In  interpreting  the  several 
works  of  Aristotle,  he  mainly  follows  Avicenna,  continuing 
Avicenna’s  plan  of  freely  paraphrasing  the  text1.  These  para¬ 
phrases,  in  which  he  adapts  the  teaching  of  Aristotle  to  the 
requirements  of  the  Church,  are  invariably  followed  by  a 
‘digression’,  in  which  he  states  and  discusses  the  views  of  his 
predecessors.  The  only  case  in  which  we  find  a  regular 
commentary,  instead  of  a  paraphrase,  is  that  of  the  Politics ,  which 
probably  belongs  to  the  latter  part  of  his  life2.  His  works,  as 
printed  at  Lyons  in  1651,  fill  21  folio  volumes,  forming  an 
encyclopaedia  of  all  the  learning  and  the  polemics  of  his  time. 
He  is  somewhat  severely  criticised  by  Prantl3  as  merely  an 
indefatigable  compiler;  but  he  may  perhaps  be  regarded  with 
greater  justice  as  a  man  of  rich  and  varied  endowments,  who  in 
astronomy  and  chemistry  sought  for  truth  in  nature,  and  who 
deserves  full  credit  as  the  restorer  of  the  study  of  Aristotle4. 
As  ‘provincial’  of  his  Order  in  Germany,  he  visited  many 
monasteries,  and,  whenever  he  heard  of  any  ancient  mss,  he 
either  copied  them  himself  or  caused  them  to  be  copied  by  his 
companions5.  But  the  influence  of  that  Order,  during  the  first 
century  of  its  existence,  was,  in  general,  detrimental  to  classical 
learning.  The  Dominicans  studied  the  Classics  not  for  their  own 
sake  but  for  the  purposes  of  preaching,  and  their  own  Latin 
style,  which  was  doubtless  debased  by  the  low  standard  of 

1  Cp.  Jourdain,  38;  Renan,  Av .,  231,  23d4;  and  list  in  Bursian,  i  7811. 

2  Charles,  Roger  Bacon,  316  note  2.  He  here  follows  the  method  of  his 
pupil  Thomas  Aquinas.  But  the  authorship  is  disputed  (Erdmann,  i  §  200,  8). 

3  Logik,  iii  189.  It  is  possibly  Albertus  who  is  attacked  by  Roger  Bacon 
in  Op.  Tertium ,  p.  30  f  and  Op.  Minus ,  p.  327  f  (Charles,  pp.  108,  355, 
‘ ignorat  linguas')',  see,  however,  Brewer’s  Pref.  p.  xxxiv. 

4  Cp.  T.  Clifford  Allbutt,  Science  and  Medieval  Thought ,  p.  74  note. 

3  Haureau,  II  i  218. 


56o 


THOMAS  AQUINAS. 


[CHAP. 


Thomas 

Aquinas 


Latinity  attained  in  the  current  translations  and  comments  on 
Aristotle,  was  apt  to  be  exceedingly  barbarous1. 

The  great  pupil  of  Albertus  Magnus,  Thomas  Aquinas,  the 
son  of  a  count  of  Aquino,  was  born  ( c .  1225-7) 
at  a  castle  near  the  ancient  Aquinum  ;  he  received 
his  first  education  at  the  neighbouring  monastery 
of  Monte  Cassino,  and  continued  his  studies  for  six  years  at  the 
stadium  generate  lately  founded  by  Frederic  II  at  Naples,  where 
he  entered  the  Dominican  Order.  He  next  studied  at  Cologne 
under  Albertus  Magnus  (who  took  his  favourite  pupil  with  him  to 
Paris  and  brought  him  back  to  Cologne),  taught  philosophy  at 
Cologne,  Paris,  Bologna,  Naples  and  elsewhere ;  lived  at  the 
papal  court  in  Rome  from  1260  to  1269,  and  was  less  than  50 
years  of  age  when  he  died  in  1274,  on  his  way  to  the  Council  of 
Lyons.  In  his  teaching  he  brought  Scholasticism  to  its  highest 
development  by  harmonising  Aristotelianism  with  the  doctrines  of 
the  Church.  Certain  dogmas  were,  however,  excluded  from 
comparison  by  being  regarded  as  mysteries  to  be  received  as 
matters  of  faith  alone.  With  Aquinas,  the  logical  and  meta¬ 
physical  basis  is  that  of  Aristotle,  with  elements  derived  from 
Platonism  and  from  Christian  theology2.  While  Albertus  had 
composed  paraphrases  of  Aristotle  after  the  manner  of  his  eastern 
exponent  Avicenna,  Aquinas  produced  commentaries  after  that  of 
his  western  interpreter  Averroes.  He  thus  comments  on  the 
De  Interpretatione,  Analytica  Posteriora,  Physics ,  Parva  Naturalia , 
Metaphysics ,  De  Anima ,  Ethics,  Politics ,  Meteorologica ,  De  Caelo 
et  Mundo  and  De  Generatione  et  Corruptione.  These  com¬ 
mentaries  were  composed  in  Italy  (c.  1260-9).  His  three 
greatest  works  are  his  Exposition  of  the  Sentences  of  Peter 
Lombard,  his  De  Veritate  Fidei  Catholicae  (1261-4),  and  his 
celebrated  Summa  Theologiae  (which  was  left  unfinished).  In 
this  last  his  teaching  on  the  subject  of  Angels  is  naturally 
founded  on  ‘Dionysius  the  Areopagite’;  one  of  his  favourite 
phrases  is  ut  docet  Dionysius ;  and  he  has  no  suspicion  of  the 
true  date  of  that  author.  In  the  domain  of  theology  the  Summa 


1  Bursian,  i  77.  Cp.  Hallam,  Lit .  i  774  note  y. 

2  All  these  sources  of  illumination  are  indicated  by  the  convergent  rays  in 
the  upper  five-eighths  of  Traini’s  celebrated  picture. 


XXX.] 


THOMAS  AQUINAS. 


561 


is  an  embodiment  of  the  scientific  spirit  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
a  spirit  which,  as  represented  by  Alexander  of  Hales,  Albertus 
Magnus  and  Thomas  Aquinas,  stands  in  sharp  contrast  with  the 
literary  and  classical  spirit  of  the  twelfth  century,  as  exemplified 
in  John  of  Salisbury  and  Peter  of  Blois1.  As  a  commentator  on 
Aristotle,  Thomas  Aquinas  does  not  indulge  in  ‘digressions’,  like 
those  of  Albertus  Magnus,  and  in  this  respect  he  is  followed  by 
his  Dominican  pupil  Robert  Kilwardby  (archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
d.  1279),  who  left  behind  him  39  treatises  in  philosophy  alone2. 
On  the  question  of  ‘universals’  Thomas  Aquinas  is  a  Realist  in 
the  moderate  Aristotelian  sense,  while  he  opposes  the  Platonic 
theory  of  ideas,  as  represented  by  Aristotle,  though  he  accepts  it, 
so  far  as  it  is  supported  by  St  Augustine3.  The  question  how 
far  he  was  familiar  with  Greek  has  been  often  discussed.  He 
has  been  described  as  ignorant  of  Greek  by  Oudin4  and  others5, 
who  are  vaguely  opposed  by  Gradenigo6  on  the  ground  of  his 
frequent  citations  from  Aristotle  and  the  Greek  fathers,  and  the 
wide  prevalence  of  a  study  of  Greek  in  the  Dominican  Order. 
The  dissertations  by  Bernardo  de  Rubeis  (1750),  reprinted  in  the 
first  volume  of  the  papal  edition  of  Thomas  Aquinas  (1882),  tend 
to  show  that,  though  he  was  not  a  consummate  hellenist,  he  was 
not  an  entire  stranger  to  the  Greek  language.  He  had  doubtless 
some  original  Greek  texts  at  his  disposal,  and  obtained  fresh 
versions  taken  directly  from  the  Greek,  as  his  biographer  expressly 
states7.  In  a  single  work,  the  Catena  A  urea ,  he  cites  the  opinions 
of  60  Greek  writers ;  in  his  Summa,  he  refers  to  a  score  of 

1  F.  A.  Gasquet,  in  Dublin  Review ,  1898,  37 3. 

2  Haureau,  n  ii  -29. 

3  Ueberweg,  i  444  k 

4  Comm,  de  Scriptoribus  Eccl.  (1722),  iii  256,  ‘  nesciebat...linguas  quas 
appellant  exoticas;...ut  Graeca  nec  tantisper  intelligent’. 

5  Brucker,  Hist.  Crit.  Phil,  iii  803!;  Gidel,  p.  232.  Erasmus  on  Ep. 
Rom.  i  described  him  as  ‘dignus  plane  cui  linguarum  quoque  peritia...con- 
tingeret  ’. 

6  Lett.  Greco- Italiana  (1759),  62. 

7  Tocco,  in  Acta  Sand.,  Antwerp,  i  665,  ‘scripsit  etiam  super  philosophiam 
naturalem  et  moralem,  et  super  metaphysicam,  quorum  librorum  procuravit 
ut  fieret  nova  translatio  quae  sententiae  Aristotelis  contineret  clarius  veritatem  ’. 
Cp.  Jourdain,  40,  392. 


S. 


36 


562 


THOMAS  AQUINAS. 


[CHAP. 


ecclesiastical  and  about  the  same  number  of  secular  Greek  authors 
(including  Heraclitus  and  Aristophanes),  and  Greek  etymologies 
present  themselves  on  the  opening  pages  of  that  work1 2.  He 
compares  the  Latin  renderings  of  the  Greek  texts  of  the  Ethics 
and  Politics ,  and  records  variants  which  are  copied  from  him  by 
his  master  Albert.  In  his  Commentary  on  the  Ethics 2  (as 
observed  by  Dr  Jackson)  ‘the  presentation  of  the  right  reading 
misspelt,  and  of  a  ludicrous  etymology  side  by  side  with  one  which 
is  very  nearly  right,  seems  to  show  that,  whilst  Aquinas  had  about 
him  people  who  knew  Greek,  he  himself  had  no  substantial 
knowledge  of  it’3.  His  Commentary  on  the  De  Interpretatione 
offers  some  criticisms  on  the  Greek  text,  and  implies  the  use  of 
two  Latin  versions.  He  also  refers  to  the  Greek  in  commenting 
on  the  Analytica  Posteriora.  In  the  Physics  (vii  2,  4)  he  explains 
the  Greek  words  spathesis  and  ccrcisis ,  which  are  retained  in  the 
Latin  versions.  In  the  De  Caelo  et  Mundo  he  notices  that  the 
words  De  Caelo  alone  represent  the  Greek  title4,  and  he  also  gives 
the  meaning  of  a  number  of  Greek  terms.  The  same  is  true  of 
the  Meteorologica,  where  he  apparently  used  three  versions,  alt 
derived  directly  from  the  Greek5.  In  quoting  Aristotle  he  uses 
translations  from  the  Greek  alone  and  not  from  the  Arabic6.  It 
was  at  his  own  instance  that  ‘William  of  Brabant’  is  said  to  have 
produced  in  1273  (doubtless  with  the  help  of  others)  a  literal 
Latin  translation  of  the  Greek  text  of  ‘all  the  works  of  Aristotle’, 
which  superseded  the  old  renderings  from  the  Arabic7.  ‘  William 

1  Tougard,  63  f. 

2  v  I,  (vbfjios)  a.7reaxeSiacriueuos  (p.  1129^  15). 

3  Clifford  Allbutt,  l.c.,  p.  76  f. 

4  apud  Graecos  intitulatur  De  Caelo. 

5  Jourdain,  396 — 400. 

6  ib.  40. 

7  1273:  Wilhelmus  de  Brabantia,  ordinis  Praedicatorum,  transtulit  omnes 
libros  Aristotelis  de  graeco  in  latinum,  verbum  ex  verbo,  qua  translatione 
scholares  adhuc  hodierna  die  utuntur  in  scholis,  ad  instantiam  domini  Thomae 
de  Aquino  (Slav.  Chron.  in  Lindenbrog’s  Scriptores  reru7n  Germ,  septent.,  1706, 
p.  206;  cp.  Jourdain,  67).  ‘Henri  de  Hervordia  ’  adds:  nam  temporibus 
domini  Alberti  translatione  veteri  omnes  communiter  utebantur  (ib.  68).  Cp. 
Tocco  on  p.  561;  also  ms  of  De  Caelo  et  Mundo  in  Trin.  Coll.  Library  (no. 
1498,  late  in  c.  xm)  ‘hec  est  noua  trawdacio  ’. 


XXX.] 


WILLIAM  OF  MOERBEKE. 


563 


of  Brabant’,  Roger  Bacon’s  ‘William  the  Fleming’1,  is  none  other 
than  William  of  Moerbeke,  or  Meerbecke,  a  small  town  S.  of 
Ghent  and  on  the  borders  of  Flanders  and  Brabant. 

He  was  educated  at  Louvain  and  was  probably  0f  Moerbeke 
one  of  the  young  Dominicans  annually  sent  to 
Greece  to  learn  the  language.  After  his  return  ( c .  1268)  he  was 
chaplain  to  Clement  IV  and  Gregory  X,  and  acted  as  Greek 
secretary  at  the  Council  of  Lyons  (1274),  where  he  was  one  of 
those  who  chanted  the  Nicene  Creed  in  Greek,  thrice  repeating 
the  words  contested  by  the  Greek  Church2.  Roger  Bacon,  who 
does  not  mention  him  in  1267  among  the  translators  of  Aristotle3, 
describes  him  as  well  known  in  12724.  Towards  the  close  of  his 
life  he  became  archbishop  of  Corinth  (1277 — 1281)  and  continued 
the  work  of  executing  (and  possibly  superintending)  translations 
from  Greek  into  Latin.  His  translations  included  Simplicius  on 
Aristotle  De  Caelo  et  Mundo ,  and  probably  Simplicius  on  the 
Categories  (1266)  and  Ammonius  De  I?i terpreta tione,  possibly  the 
Organon,  Physics  and  Historia  Animalium ,  certainly  the  ‘  Theo¬ 
logical  Elements’  of  Proclus  (at  Viterbo  1268)5,  the  Prognostics  of 
Hippocrates,  and  Galen  De  Alnnentis  (1277),  and  (above  all)  the 
Rhetoric  (1281)  and  Politics  of  Aristotle6.  The  value  of  the  last 

1  Co7np.  Phil.,  471  ;  infra  pp.  569  f. 

2  Hist.  Litt.  de  la  France,  xxi  145. 

3  Op.  Tertium,  91. 

4  Comp.  Phil.,  471. 

5  Specimen  quoted  by  Cousin,  ed.  1820-7  ;  MS  in  Peterhouse  Library, 
after  1268,  part  4  of  no.  121  in  M.  R.  James’  Catalogue ;  p.  566  infra. 
Thomas  Aquinas  (xxi  718,  ed.  1866)  notices  that  the  Pseudo- Aristotelian  Liber 
De  Causis  is  an  Arabic  abstract  of  the  ‘  Theological  Elements  ’  of  Proclus 
(Wustenfeld,  Gott.  Abhandl.  nof);  the  De  Causis  is  ascribed  to  Alfarabius 
(d.  at  Damascus,  950).  The  Dece?7i  Dubitationes,  De  Providentia  and  De 
Malorum  Subsistentia  of  Proclus  were  all  translated  by  William  at  Corinth  in 
1280=1281  N.S.  (Quetif,  i  390). 

6  Jourdain,  67  f.  The  Rhetoi'ic  of  Aristotle  and  of  Cicero,  and  the  Simwia 
of  Aquinas,  are  among  the  mss  received  at  Avignon  by  Adam  bp  of  Hereford 
in  1319,  for  Laurence  Bruton  de  Chepyn  Norton,  nephew  of  the  abbot  of 
Hayles  (Gasquet,  Essays ,  37).  William’s  transl.  of  the  Politics  was  finished 
before  the  death  of  Thomas  Aquinas  (1274),  who  quotes  it  twice  in  the  Siwima 
cotitra  Gentiles ,  c.  1261-5  {Rhein.  Mus.  xxxix  457).  A  Nova  Translatio  of 
the  Ethics,  bearing  in  the  MS  the  date  1281  (probably  by  Henry  Kosbein  of 
Brabant,  printed  in  1497),  was  used  by  Thomas  before  1262  (Quetif,  u.  s.). 

36—2 


564 


SIGER  OF  BRABANT. 


[CHAP. 


two  translations  has  been  fully  appreciated  by  Spengel  and 
Susemihl  respectively.  Though  this  translator’s  knowledge  of 
Greek  is  imperfect1,  the  very  baldness  and  literalness  of  his 
rendering,  which  has  been  denounced  by  Roger  Bacon  and  by 
Sepulveda2,  add  to  its  value  as  evidence  of  the  text  of  the  lost  ms 
from  which  it  was  translated,  a  ms  better  than  the  best  of  those 
that  have  survived. 

The  Greek  text  of  the  Ethics  is  said  to  have  been  translated 
by  Henry  Kosbein  of  Brabant,  who  may  possibly  be  identified 
with  one  of  that  name  who  was  bishop  of  Liibeck  from  1270  to 
12843.  Another  ‘translator’  of  Aristotle,  Thomas  de  Cantimpre 
(c.  1271),  has  a  vague  existence  in  a  notice  by  Trithemius4. 
Siger  of  Brabant  is  described  by  Dante  as  lecturing  at  Paris  in 
the  Rue  du  Fouarre5;  and  it  was  once  supposed  that  Dante  might 
have  listened  to  his  lectures  in  Paris.  But  it  is  now  known  that 
Dante  was  only  seven  when  Siger  left  Paris  (1272)  and  under 
eighteen  when  Siger  died  in  prison  at  Orvieto,  in  1 283-4 6.  It  is 
therefore  clear  that  he  is  introduced  by  Dante,  not  as  the  poet’s 
teacher,  but  as  ‘the  typical  representative  of  the  faculty  of  Arts , 
to  balance  the  Theologians  and  the  representatives  of  the  other 
Faculties’,  mentioned  in  the  same  canto.  It  has  also  been 
ascertained  that  ‘Siger  was  an  Averroist,  i.e.  a  pure  Aristotelian 
who  taught  the  doctrine  of  Aristotle  as  to  the  eternity  of  the 
world,  the  unity  of  intellect,  the  mortality  of  the  individual  soul, 
without  the  compromises,  accommodations,  and  corrections 


1  See  Newman’s  Politics ,  vol.  n  p.  xlivf,  where  examples  of  the  translator’s 
ignorance  are  cited.  Cp.  Busse  (1881)  in  Susemihl-Hicks,  71-3. 

2  Pol.  trans.  1548. 

3  Hist.  Litt.  de  la  France ,  xxi  141 ;  Gidel,  264  f. 

4  Jourdain,  64^  who  is  wrong,  however,  in  identifying  him  with  the 
Thomas  (bp  of  St  David’s)  mentioned  by  Roger  Bacon,  Op.  Maj.  48.  Thomas 
Cantipratanus,  an  Augustinian  Canon  of  Cantimpre  near  Cambrai,  became  a 
Dominican  in  1232,  studied  at  Cologne  and  Paris,  and  was  sub-prior  of 
Louvain  where  he  died  (either  as  early  as  1263  or  as  late  as  1280).  The  most 
important  of  the  works  assigned  to  him  in  Zedler’s  Universal  Lexikon  (1745) 
is  De  Naturis  Renan  ( c .  1240  in  20  books),  but  no  trans.  of  Aristotle  is  there 
mentioned. 

5  Par.  x  136. 

6  Maudonnet,  Siger  de  Brabant  (Fribourg,  1899). 


XXX.] 


GILLES  DE  PARIS. 


565 


adopted  by  the  orthodox  Aristotelians  like  St  Thomas51.  He 
wrote  several  works  on  Logic,  including  a  commentary  on  the 
Prior  Analytics1 2.  He  is  further  said  to  have  expounded  the 
Politics  in  a  revolutionary  spirit,  and  the  same  is  reported  of 
Nicolas  d’Autrecour  (c.  1348)  and  the  Carmelite  Pierre  la  Casa 
and  the  Benedictine  Gui  de  Strasbourg.  Meanwhile,  about  the 
date  of  Siger’s  death,  Gilles  de  Paris,  who  was  studying  the 
Politics  for  a  very  different  purpose,  had  founded  on  that  treatise 
a  work  De  Regimine  Principum ,  written  (c.  1283)  for  the  benefit 
of  the  future  king,  Philip  le  Bel3 4.  About  the  same  time,  an  Irish 
Dominican,  Geoffrey  of  Waterford  (d.  1300),  translated  the 
Physiognomical ,  and,  in  the  preface  to  his  rendering  of  the 
Pseudo-Aristotelian  treatise  De  Regimine  Principum ,  recorded 
the  legend  that,  at  the  death  of  Aristotle,  his  spirit  passed  into 
the  heavens  in  the  semblance  of  flame5.  The  Saracenic  in¬ 
terest  in  Aristotle  is  embodied  in  the  belief  that  the  bones 
of  that  philosopher  were  preserved  in  the  principal  Mosque  of 
Palermo6. 

We  have  now  seen  that,  in  the  course  of  about  130  years,  i.e. 
in  the  interval  between  the  early  translations  at  Toledo  in  1150 
and  the  death  of  William  of  Moerbeke  in  1281,  the  knowledge 
of  Aristotle’s  philosophy  had  passed  in  Europe  from  a  phase  of 
almost  total  darkness  to  one  of  nearly  perfect  light.  The  whole 
of  the  Organon  had  become  known.  The  Physics ,  Metaphysics , 
and  Ethics  had  reached  Europe  through  translations  from  the 

1  Rashdall  on  Maudonnet  in  Eng.  Hist.  Rev.  1902,  347  b 

2  Cp.  Hist.  Litt.  de  la  France,  xxi  96 — 127. 

3  Le  Clerc,  Hist.  Litt.  505.  The  Augustinian  monk  Gilles  de  Paris  is  the 
same  as  Egidio  (Colonna)  da  Roma,  who  became  bp  of  Bourges  in  1294,  and 
died  at  Avignon  in  1316  (Tiraboschi,  iv  147-51;  Lajard  in  Hist.  Litt.  de  la 
France,  xxx  421 — 566).  He  repeatedly  quotes  the  Politics  and  Ethics  in  his 
De  Regimine  Principum,  which  was  printed  ir  times  in  Latin  (1473 — 1617) 
and  translated  into  French  soon  after  1286  (ed.  Molenaer,  1899).  It  is  one  of 
the  sources  of  Occleve’s  Governail  of  Princes  (H.  Morley,  Eng.  Writers,  vi 
I31)* 

4  Hist.  Litt.  de  la  France ,  xxi  216;  Gidel,  263. 

6  Gidel,  353. 

6  Baddeley’s  Charles  III  of  Naples,  123. 


566  ARISTOTLE  ALMOST  FULLY  KNOWN.  [CHAP.  XXX. 


Arabic,  and  the  De  Anima ,  the  Magna  Moralia ,  Politics  and 
Rhetoric  through  translations  from  the  Greek1.  The  Poetic  had 
already  been  translated  into  Arabic  from  a  Syriac  version  founded 
on  a  Greek  ms  far  older  than  any  text  of  the  treatise  now  extant, 
but  this  translation,  which  was  probably  little  known,  has 
only  recently  been  made  available  for  the  purposes  of  textual 
criticism2. 

1  Cp.  p.  548  supra . 

2  Margoliouth,  Anecdota  Orientalia  (1887);  Butcher’s  ed.  2,  p.  4.  Cp. 
Egger,  Hist,  de  la  Critique ,  554-603  ;  Immisch  in  Philol.  lv  (1896)  20 — 38; 
J.  Tkac  in  Wiener  Studien,  xxiv  (1902)  70 — 98.  The  date  of  the  Arabic 
version  is  c.  935. 


Zlf 

. 

oitem  ♦ 

Colophon  of  the  ‘Theological  Elements’  of  Proclus. 


From  a  xm  cent,  ms  in  the  Library  of  Peterhouse,  Cambridge, 
copied  from  the  translation  finished  at  Viterbo  by  William 
of  Moerbeke,  18  May,  1268  (p.  563  supra). 

Part  iv  of  ms  1.  2.  6  (M.  R.  James,  Catalogue  of  the  MSS  in  the 
Library  of  Peterhouse,  Cambridge ,  no.  121,  p.  142). 


CHAPTER  XXXI. 


THE  THIRTEENTH  CENTURY  AND  AFTER. 

ROGER  BACON  (1214 — 94)  TO  DANTE  (1265 — 1321). 

Among  the  keenest  critics  of  the  Schoolmen,  and  also  of  the 
recent  translators  of  Aristotle,  was  Roger  Bacon 
(c.  1214 — 1294).  Born  near  Ilchester  and  educated  R°ser  Bacon 
at  Oxford  and  Paris,  he  included  among  his  teachers  at  Oxford 
men  such  as  Robert  Grosseteste,  Adam  Marsh  and  Thomas 
Wallensis  (afterwards  bishop  of  St  David’s).  All  of  these  are  said 
to  have  been  pupils  of  Edmund  Rich  (archbishop  of  Canterbury, 
1234 — 40),  who,  according  to  a  biography  ascribed  to  the 
Dominican  Robert  Bacon,  studied  as  though  he  were  to  live  for 
ever,  and  lived  as  though  he  were  to  die  on  the  morrow1.  It  was 
probably  under  the  influence  of  Grosseteste,  the  first  lecturer  to 
the  Franciscans  at  Oxford2,  that  he  entered  the  Franciscan  Order. 
After  pursuing  his  studies  in  Paris,  he  returned  to  England  about 
1250.  Some  seven  years  later,  he  fell  under  the  suspicions  of 
his  Order,  and,  by  the  authority  of  its  recently  appointed  general, 
afterwards  known  as  the  ‘seraphic’  Bonaventura,  was  for  ten 
years  (1257 — 67)  kept  in  close  confinement  in  Paris.  He 
probably  owed  his  partial  release  to  the  goodwill  of  Clement 
IV  (d.  1268),  for  whom  he  now  wrote,  in  the  wonderfully  brief 
space  of  15  months,  his  three  great  works,  the  Opus  Majus,  the 
Opus  Minus  and  the  Opus  Tertium  (1267).  These  were  followed 

1  St  John’s  Coll.  MS,  fol.  iii  v,  col.  2,  (studebat)  discere,  quasi  semper 
victurus;  vivere,  quasi  eras  moriturus  (printed  in  Life  by  W.  Wallace,  1893). 

2  Grosseteste,  Epp.  p.  179  Luard. 


568 


ROGER  BACON. 


[CHAP. 


by  his  Compendium  Studii  Philosophiae  (12  7 1-2).  He  was  once 
more  placed  under  restraint  in  1278;  but  he  had  again  been 
released  before  writing  his  Compendium  Studii  Theologiae  (1292), 
and  he  probably  died  at  Oxford  in  1294.  His  earlier  reputation 
as  an  alchemist  and  a  necromancer  was  greatly  transformed  by 
the  publication  (by  Dr  Samuel  Jebb)  of  his  Opus  Majus  (1733), 
which  has  been  recognised  as  at  once  the  Encyclopaedia  and 
the  Organon  of  the  thirteenth  century1.  He  here  discusses  the 
hindrances  to  the  progress  of  true  science,  and  broadly  sketches 
the  outlines  of  grammar,  logic,  mathematics,  physics  (especially 
optics),  experimental  research  and  moral  philosophy;  but  in  the 
text,  as  first  published,  the  part  on  grammar  was  imperfect  and 
that  on  moral  philosophy2  was  wanting.  Extracts  from  a  ms  of 
the  Opus  Tertium  were  published  by  Cousin  in  18483;  fragments 
of  the  Opus  Minus ,  with  the  Opus  Tertiu??i  and  the  Compendium 
Studii  Philosophiae,  were  first  edited  by  Professor  J.  S.  Brewer  in 
the  Opera  Inedita  of  1859;  and  an  excellent  monograph  on  their 
author  was  produced  by  M.  Emile  Charles  in  1861.  The  following 
is  the  general  purport  of  the  passages  in  the  above  works  of  Roger 
Bacon  which  bear  on  our  present  subject : — 

‘  Ignorance  of  the  truths  set  forth  by  the  ancients  is  due  to  the  little  care 
that  is  spent  on  the  study  of  the  ancient  languages.  It  is  vain  to  object  that 
some  of  the  Fathers  neglected  that  study  and  misunderstood  its  advantages. 
Worthy  as  they  are  of  respect  in  many  ways,  they  cannot  serve  as  our  models 
in  everything.  They  knew  and  appreciated  Plato,  but  were  almost  entirely 
ignorant  of  Aristotle.  The  first  to  translate  and  explain  the  Categories  was 
Augustine,  who  praises  Aristotle  more  for  that  one  small  work  than  we  for  all 
{Opus  Majus ,  p.  18).  The  next  to  translate  Aristotle  was  Boethius,  who 
rendered  parts  of  the  Logic  and  a  few  other  works... The  Fathers  often  follow 
Aristotle’s  teaching  on  Grammar,  Logic  and  Rhetoric,  and  the  common  axioms 
of  his  Metaphysics',  but  they  neglect  the  rest  and  even  bid  us  neglect  it  (p.  19). 
Philosophy  is  also  neglected  by  modern  doctors,  who  use  inferior  text-books 
(p.  21).  It  is  impossible  to  obtain  a  perfect  knowledge  of  the  Scriptures, 
without  knowing  Hebrew  and  Greek,  or  of  philosophy  without  knowing 

1  Whewell’s  Phil,  of  the  Inductive  Sciences ,  xii  c.  7. 

2  Since  published  by  J.  K.  Ingram  (Dublin,  1858).  Cp.  E.  Charles, 
Roger  Bacon ,  pp.  339 — 348.  The  Preface  was  first  printed  by  F.  A.  Gasquet 
in  Eng.  Hist.  Rev.  1897  p.  516  b  The  Op.  Majus  has  been  edited  by  Bridges 
(1897-1900). 

3  Journal  des  Savants  (1848),  Mars — Juin. 


XXXI.] 


ROGER  BACON. 


569 


Arabic  as  well  (p.  44).  A  translator  ought  to  be  thoroughly  familiar  with 
the  science  of  which  he  is  treating,  and  with  the  language  of  his  original  and 
that  of  his  own  rendering.  Boethius  alone  has  known  the  meaning  of  the 
languages1;  Grosseteste  alone,  the  meaning  of  the  science.  All  the  other 
translators  are  ignorant  of  both.  Their  translations  of  Aristotle  in  particular 
are  impossible  to  understand  (p.  45).  The  Latin  translations  of  Josephus, 
Dionysius,  Basil,  John  of  Damascus  and  others,  are  inferior  to  those  executed 
by  Grosseteste  ’  (p.  46). 

‘  There  are  not  five  men  in  Latin  Christendom  who  are  acquainted  with  the 
Hebrew,  Greek  and  Arabic  Grammar... There  are  many  among  the  Latins  who 
can  speak  Greek,  Arabic,  and  Hebrew;  very  few,  who  understand  the  grammar 
of  these  languages,  or  know  how  to  teach  them... So  it  is  now  with  nearly  all 
the  Jews,  and  even  with  the  native  Greeks... Even  when  they  do  understand 
the  languages,  they  know  nothing  of  the  sciences... We  must  have  the  original 
texts  of  the  separate  parts  of  philosophy,  that  the  falsities  and  defects  in  the 
Latin  copies  may  be  discovered  ’  ( Opus  Tertium ,  p.  33).  ‘The  scientific  works 
of  Aristotle,  Avicenna,  Seneca,  Cicero,  and  other  ancients,  cannot  be  had 
except  at  a  great  cost ;  their  principal  works  have  not  been  translated  into 
Latin... The  admirable  books  of  Cicero  De  Republica  are  not  to  be  found 
anywhere. ..I  could  never  find  the  works  of  Seneca... although  I  made  diligent 
search  for  them  during  twenty  years  and  more’  (p.  55) 2. 

‘  Though  we  have  numerous  translations  of  all  the  sciences  by  Gerard  of 
Cremona,  Michael  Scot,  Alfred  the  Englishman,  Hermann  the  German,  and 
William  <the>  Fleming,  there  is  such  an  utter  falsity  in  all  their  writings 
that  none  can  sufficiently  wonder  at  it... Certainly  none  of  the  above-named 
had  any  true  knowledge  of  the  tongues  or  the  sciences,  as  is  clear,  not  from 
their  translations  only,  but  also  from  their  condition  of  life.  All  were  alive  in  my 
time ;  some,  in  their  youth,  contemporaries  with  Gerard  of  Cremona,  who  was 
somewhat  more  advanced  in  years  among  them.  Hermann  the  German,  who 
was  very  intimate  with  Gerard,  is  still  alive  (1272)  and  a  bishop.  When  I 
questioned  him  about  certain  books  of  Logic3,  which  he  had  to  translate  from 
the  Arabic,  he  roundly  told  me  he  knew  nothing  of  Logic,  and  therefore  did 
not  dare  to  translate  them. ..Nor  did  he  understand  Arabic,  as  he  confessed; 
in  fact,  he  was  rather  an  assistant  in  the  translations,  than  the  real  translator. 
For  he  kept  Saracens  about  him  in  Spain,  who  had  a  principal  hand  in  his 
translations.  In  the  same  way  Michael  the  Scot  claimed  the  merit  of  numerous 
translations.  But  it  is  certain  that  Andrew,  a  Jew,  laboured  at  them  more 
than  he  did.  And  even  Michael,  as  Hermann  reported,  did  not  understand 
either  the  sciences  or  the  tongues.  And  so  of  the  rest ;  especially  the  notorious 

1  Cp.  Op.  Tert.  33;  Gk.  Gr.  29. 

2  Brewer’s  Preface ,  pp.  Ixi — lxiii. 

3  The  Rhet.  and  Poet,  are  meant ;  cp.  Comp.  Stud.  Philos,  p.  473. 
Hermann  the  German  (ap.  Wiistenfeld,  Gott.  Abhandl.  93)  himself  describes 
them  as  logici  negocii  Aristotelis  complementum.  Cp.  Charles,  p.  122  n.  1,  and 
Immisch,  in  Philol.  lv  20 ;  p.  546  supra. 


570 


ROGER  BACON. 


[CHAP. 


William  <the>  Fleming,  who  is  now  in  such  reputation  (1272);  whereas  it 
is  well  known  to  all  men  of  letters  in  Paris,  that  he  is  ignorant  of  the  sciences 
in  the  original  Greek,  to  which  he  makes  such  pretensions ;  and  therefore  he 
translates  falsely  and  corrupts  the  philosophy  of  the  Latins  ’  ( Compendium 
Studii  Philosophiae,  p.  47 1)1 2.  ‘  If  I  had  any  authority  over  the  translations  of 

Aristotle,  I  should  have  all  of  them  burnt  to  save  men  from  wasting  their 
time  in  studying  them  and  thus  multiplying  the  sources  of  error  and  ignorance’ 
(p.  469). 

‘  Slowly  has  any  portion  of  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle  come  into  use 
among  the  Latins.  His  Natural  Philosophy ,  and  his  Metaphysics,  with  the 
commentaries  of  Averroes  and  others,  were  translated  in  my  time  {temporibus 
nostris ),  and  interdicted  at  Paris  before  the  year  a.d.  1237,  because  of  the 
eternity  of  the  world  and  of  time,  and  because  of  the  book  of  the  Divination 
by  Dreams ,  which  is  the  third  book  De  Somno  et  Vigilia ,  and  because  of  many 
passages  erroneously  translated.  Even  his  Logic  was  slowly  received  and 
lectured  on.  For  St  Edmund,  the  archbishop  of  Canterbury  [Edmund  Rich], 
was  the  first  who  in  my  time  read  the  Elenchi 2  at  Oxford.  And  I  have  seen 
Master  Hugo,  who  first  read  the  book  of  Posterior  {Analytics),  and  have  also 
seen  his  writing  (■ verbum ).  So  there  have  been  few,  considering  the  multitude  of 
the  Latins,  who  are  of  any  account  in  the  philosophy  of  Aristotle;  nay,  very 
few  indeed,  and  scarcely  any  up  to  this  year  of  grace  1292... The  Ethics  has 
but  slowly  become  known3,  having  been  only  lately,  and  that  seldom,  ex¬ 
pounded  by  our  masters4... Thus  far,  there  have  only  been  three  persons  who 
could  form  a  true  judgement  of  the  small  portion  of  the  whole  of  Aristotle  that 
has  been  translated  ’5. 

In  the  Opus  Majus  Roger  Bacon  protests  against  the  inordinate 
amount  of  time  spent  on  the  metaphysical  controversy  as  to 
Universals6  (p.  28);  notices  the  expansion  in  the  knowledge  of 

1  Brewer’s  Preface ,  p.  lix. 

2  librum  Elenchorum  (Univ.  Coll.  Oxf.  MS,  Rashdall  ii  754);  libruni 
Elemetorum  (Brit.  Mus.  MS  Royal  7  F  vii,  folio  155). 

3  coitata  {communicata  ?)  Brit.  Mus.  MS. 

4  a  magistris  ( ib .),  not  Parisiis  (as  printed  by  Charles). 

5  Compendium  Studii  Theologiae,  p.  lv  of  Brewer’s  Preface ,  corrected  and 
supplemented  from  text  in  Charles,  p.  412,  and  Rashdall,  ii  754,  and  from  MS 
in  Brit.  Mus. 

6  His  own  position  may  be  inferred  from  the  fact  that  he  criticises  the 
‘Unity  of  Form’  held  by  Thomas  Aquinas,  thus  anticipating  Scotus;  while, 
in  his  doctrine  of  Universals,  he  anticipates  Ockham,  but  avoids  the  mistake 
of  supposing  that  the  particular  alone  is  real.  Cp.  Extracts  in  Charles,  p.  383, 
‘Universale  non  est  nisi  convenientia  plurium  individuorum’...4  Individuum 
est  prius  secundum  naturam  ’  etc.;  also  the  full  discussion,  ib.  pp.  164 — 244, 
and  the  brief  summary  in  Rashdall,  ii  525. 


XXXI.] 


ROGER  BACON. 


571 


Aristotle’s  writings  dating  from  the  time  of  Michael  Scot,  i.e.  from 
after  1230  (p.  36);  and  denounces  the  inadequacy  of  the  current 
translations,  and  especially  the  ignorance  which  had  led  the 
translators  to  leave  foreign  words  standing  in  their  text  (p.  45). 
Three  times  over  he  expresses  his  annoyance  at  the  use  of  the 
word  belenum  in  the  Latin  translation  of  the  (Pseudo- Aristotelian) 
De  Plantis.  Once,  while  lecturing  on  Aristotle,  he  had  hesitated 
and  stumbled  over  this  unwonted  word,  whereupon  his  Spanish 
pupils  laughed  outright  and  told  him  that  it  was  only  the  Spanish 
for  ‘henbane’  (hyoscyamus)1.  Curiously  enough,  the  late  Greek 
translator  of  this  Spanish  equivalent  for  the  Arabic  rendering  of 
the  lost  original  of  Nicolaus  Damascenus,  although  he  uses  the 
word  voaKvaixo s  elsewhere2,  has  actually  borrowed,  from  the 
Spanish-Latin  rendering,  the  word  fieXeviov,  which  has  no  real 
authority  whatsoever. 

In  the  fragmentary  Opus  Minus  Roger  Bacon  points  out 
errors  of  translation  in  the  Vulgate,  as  well  as  mistakes  due  to 
modern  correctors  of  the  text: — ‘everyone  presumes  to  change 
anything  he  does  not  understand, — a  thing  he  would  not  dare  to 
do  for  the  books  of  the  classical  poets’  (p.  330  f)3.  Here  and 
elsewhere  he  lays  the  foundations  for  the  textual  criticism  of  the 
Scriptures 4.  He  also  protests  against  the  implicit  trust  placed  in 
the  works  of  an  earlier  Franciscan,  Alexander  of  Hales,  even 
suggesting  that  his  ponderous  Summa  Theologiae  (‘  plusquam 
pondus  unius  equi’)  was  not  composed  by  himself  (p.  326).  In 
the  Opus  Tertium  he  boldly  challenges  a  comparison  of  his  own 
work  with  that  of  Albertus  Magnus  and  William  Shirwood  (p.  14), 

1  Opus  Majus,  p.  45;  Op.  Tertium ,  p.  91;  Comp.  Phil.,  p.  467.  Cp.  De 
Plantis  i  7,  2  (p.  821  a  32=iv  28,  39  Didot).  The  Latin  translator  of  the 
Arabic  was  ‘Alfred  the  Englishman’.  Bacon  has  the  delicacy  not  to  mention 
this  fact,  but  he  ascertains  the  right  rendering  from  ‘  Hermann  the  German  ’ 
(p.  467). 

2  820  £  5  (Ar.  iv  27,  13  Didot). 

3  The  unnamed  scholar,  who  had  spent  40  years  in  cautiously  correcting 
and  expounding  the  Vulgate,  has  been  identified  as  the  Oxford  Franciscan, 
William  de  Mara,  or  de  la  Mare.  Cp.  Denifle,  Archiv  f.  Litt.  etc.  des  MAs, 
1888,  545.  (See  F.  A.  Gasquet  in  Dublin  Rev.,  1898,  p.  21.) 

4  Charles,  p.  263 ;  cp.  J.  P.  P.  Martin,  La  Vulgate  latine  au  xiii  s.  d'apres 
Roger  Bacon  (1888),  and  esp.  F.  A.  Gasquet  on  ‘  English  Biblical  Criticism  in 
the  13th  cent.  ’,  in  Dublin  Rev.,  Jan.  1898,  1 — 21. 


572 


ROGER  BACON. 


[CHAP. 


while  he  is  never  weary  of  extolling  the  merits  of  Grosseteste1,  or 
of  descanting  on  the  mistakes  in  the  current  renderings  of 
Aristotle2.  He  also  discourses  on  textual  corruptions,  on  accents, 
on  aspirates,  and  on  punctuation  and  prosody  (pp.  234 — 256  f). 
Lastly,  in  the  Compendium  Studii  Philosophiae ,  he  tells  us  that,  in 
many  parts  of  Italy,  the  clergy  and  the  people  were.  Greek3,  and 
that  teachers  of  that  language,  who  had  been  brought  from  Italy 
by  Grosseteste,  were  still  to  be  found  in  England  (p.  434).  In 
urging  the  study  of  Greek  as  well  as  Hebrew,  he  adds  : — ‘  we  are 
the  heirs  of  the  scholars  of  the  past,  and  (even  in  our  own 
interests)  are  bound  to  maintain  the  traditions  of  learning,  on 
pain  of  being  charged  with  infinite  folly’  (p.  435).  He  next  gives 
a  long  list  of  Latin  words  derived  from  Greek  (p.  44 1)4,  attacks 
the  etymological  works  of  Papias,  Hugutio  and  Brito5  (pp.  447  — 
452);  quotes  with  approval  the  criticism  on  auricalcum  (a  mistake 
for  orichalcunC )  which  he  had  himself  heard  from  Joannes  de 
Garlandia  in  Paris  (p.  453);  and  adds  a  number  of  common 
errors  in  spelling,  scansion  and  etymology  (pp.  454 — 462).  He 
urges  many  further  reasons  for  studying  Greek  (p.  464  f),  insists 
that  Aristotle  should  be  read  in  the  original  (p.  469),  and  assures 
us  that  he  had  seen  the  Greek  text  of  the  50  books  of  Aristotle 
on  Natural  History  (p.  473),  mentioned  by  Pliny  (viii  17).  Towards 
the  close,  he  sets  forth  the  Greek  alphabet,  with  the  name  and 
sound  and  numerical  value  of  each  letter  (p.  495  f)7,  classifies  all 
the  letters,  and  discourses  at  length  on  accentuation  and  prosody 
(pp.  508—519). 

The  desirability  of  the  study  of  Greek  is  sufficiently  shown  by 
the  copyist  of  the  above  treatise,  who  clumsily  tries  to  represent 

Greek  words  in  Latin  characters.  On  the  other  hand,  the  Greek 

\ 

1  PP-  33*  7°>  75*  88,  91;  cp.  Op.  Maj.  45,  64;  Comp.  Phil.  469,  472,  474; 
Gk.  Gr.  1 18. 

2  PP*  75»  77*  124;  cp.  Op.  Maj.  262,  420,  460. 

3  Cp.  Op.  Tert.  33;  and  Gk.  Gr.  31,  in  regno  Siciliae  {meaning  S.  Italy ) 
multae  ecclesiae  Graecorum  et  populi  multi  sunt  qui  veri  Graeci  sunt  etc. 

4  Cp.  Gk.  Gr.  68  and  Introd.  xxxv  f. 

5  Cp.  Gk.  Gr.  37,  92,  98 ;  Charles,  pp.  330,  359,  and  infra ,  p.  639  f. 

6  Cp.  p.  386,  Op.  Min.  c.  7,  and  Gk.  Gr.  p.  92 

7  Facs.  in  Brewer’s  Opera  Inedita  ad  fin.  Cp.  frontispiece  to  Opus  Majus, 
vol.  iii,  ed.  Bridges. 


XXXI.] 


ROGER  BACON. 


573 


is  beautifully  written  in  the  ms  of  Roger  Bacon’s  Greek  Grammar 
preserved  in  the  Library  of  Corpus  Christi  College,  Oxford,  which 
includes  a  short  Greek  Accidence  and  ends  with  the  paradigm  of 
tvtttio1.  This  Grammar  has  now  been  published,  together  with 
a  fragment,  ascribed  to  the  same  work,  in  the  Cambridge  Library2. 
The  author  holds  that  ‘the  Grammar  of  all  languages  is  sub¬ 
stantially  the  same,  though  there  may  be  accidental  variations 
in  each’3.  Greek  Grammars  had  already  been  collected  for 
Grosseteste  in  Greece  itself4,  and  one  of  his  friends  had  actually 
brought  such  a  work  from  Athens  and  had  translated  it  into 
Latin5.  Bacon’s  own  knowledge  of  Greek  was  mainly  derived 
from  the  Greeks  of  his  day,  and  it  is  their  pronunciation  that  he 
invariably  adopts6.  In  his  Grammar  he  naturally  followed  the 
Byzantine  tradition,  which  was  also  followed  subsequently  by 
Constantine  Lascaris  and  Chrysoloras7.  He  may  have  had  some 
direct  knowledge  of  Theodosius8;  but  it  seems  more  probable 
that,  like  Theodorus  Prodromus9,  he  used  a  Greek  Catechism 
resembling  that  preserved  in  the  Wolfenbiittel  Erotemata 10. 
Besides  the  Grammar,  there  is  a  Greek  lexicon  which  may  be 
attributed  to  Roger  Bacon11.  But  these  are  isolated  works;  in 
the  library  of  Christ  Church,  Canterbury  ( c .  1300),  not  a  single 
Greek  text  was  to  be  found12. 

In  the  Opus  Majusli  Roger  Bacon  refers  to  the  translation  of 
Homer  in  a  way  which,  at  first  sight,  seems  to  imply  a  personal 
familiarity  with  the  charm  of  the  original ;  but  this  impression  is 
unhappily  dispelled  when  we  find  two  parallel  passages,  from  both 

1  Brewer’s  Pref.  to  Op.  Inedita ,  p.  lxiv;  cp.  Charles,  66. 

2  E.  Nolan  (Cambridge  Univ.  Press,  1902). 

3  p.  27.  4  Op.  Tert.  91. 

5  p.  413  supra. 

6  Gk.  Gr.  p.  xx  of  Introd .,  and  pp.  32,  48  and  passim  in  the  transliterations 
there  given. 

7  Heiberg  in  Byz.  Zeitschr.  1900,  472  f;  and  S.  A.  Hirsch  in  Introd.  to  Gk. 
Gr.  p.  lx. 

8  P*  354  supra.  9  p.  354  ult. 

10  S.  A.  Hirsch,  u.  s.,  p.  lxii. 

11  M.  R.  James  in  Camb.  Mod.  Hist,  i  587. 

12  ib.  589 ;  p.  536  supra. 

13  p.  44,  si  cuiquam  videatur  linguae  gratiam  interpretatione  non  mutari, 
Homerum  exprimat  in  Latinum  ad  verbum. 


574 


ROGER  BACON. 


[CHAP. 


of  which  it  is  certain  that  he  is  here  quoting  Jerome1.  In  the 
preface  to  his  Compendium  Theologiae  he  justifies  certain  quota¬ 
tions  from  Cicero,  Pliny  and  Seneca  by  adding : — ‘  etiam  causa 
specialis  me  monet  ut  excitem  lectorem  ad  quaerendum  libros 
auctorum  dignos ,  in  quibus  magna  pulchritudo  et  dignitas 
sapientiae  reperitur,  qui  nunc  temporis  sicut  a  multitudine 
studentium,  sic  a  doctoribus  eius  penitus  ignorantur’2.  In 
philosophy  his  greatest  names  are  Aristotle3  and  his  Arabian 
exponents,  Avicenna  and  Averroes.  He  refers  to  the  Phaedo 
and  Timaeus  of  Plato,  which  were  probably  known  to  him  only 
in  Latin  translations4.  In  Latin  his  favourite  authors  are  Cicero, 
whose  appeal  to  Caesar  he  aptly  applies  to  the  pope: — noli 
nostro  periculo  esse  sapiens 5,  and  Seneca6,  who  helps  him  to 
denounce  the  blind  following  of  authority: — vivimus  ad  exempla7. 
In  history  he  knows  Sallust,  Livy  and  ‘Trogus  Pompeius’ ;  he  is 
also  familiar  with  Pliny  and  Solinus,  and  with  Donatus,  Servius, 
Apuleius,  Gellius,  Censorinus,  Boethius,  Cassiodorus  and  Priscian8 9. 
He  describes  Bede  as  literatissimus  in  grammatical ,  and  even  as 

1  Op.  Tert.  90 ;  Comp.  Phil.  466. 

2  ap.  Charles,  p.  41 1. 

3  He  knew  the  whole  of  the  Organon ,  the  Physics ,  De  Caelo  (of  which  he 
had  two  translations,  one  of  them  taken  from  the  Greek),  De  Anima,  De 
Generatione  et  Corruptione,  Parva  Naturalia ,  the  ‘  nineteen  ’  books  of  the 
Hist.  An.,  ten  books  of  the  Metaphysics  {Comp.  Phil.  473),  and  the  Ethics  (in 
three  translations).  He  had  some  slight  knowledge  of  the  Khet.  and  Poet. 
(Charles,  p.  325),  and  the  Politics,  but  called  it  the  ‘Book  of  Laws’  (ib.  397, 
and  Comp.  Phil.  422  f).  He  also  knew  the  Pseudo- Aristotelian  De  Plantis, 
De  Causis  and  Liber  Secretoru?n.  The  Problems  had  only  been  partially  and 
inadequately  translated  (Charles,  376).  Cp.,  in  general,  Charles,  315-7. 

4  Charles,  323. 

5  Pro  Marc.  25  ( Op.  Tert.  p.  87).  He  also  knew  the  Verrines,  Phil., 
Paradoxa,  De  Part.  Orat.,  De  Div.,  De  Am.,  De  Sen.,  De  Nat.  D.,  De  Off., 
and  the  then  ‘  little  known  ’  Tusc.  Disp.  He  mentions  ‘  five  ’  books  of  the 
Academica  {Op.  Tert.  p.  50,  and  Brit.  Mus.  ms,  Royal  7.  F.  vii,  folio  154  V), 
probably  meaning  the  De  Finibus;  he  cites  fragments  of  the  Hortensius  and 
Tunaeus  and  searches  in  vain  for  the  De  Republica.  Cp.  Charles,  323. 

6  He  knows  the  Letters,  De  Benef.,  Ira,  Clem.,  and  Quaest.  Nat.  (besides 
certain  apocryphal  works).  Charles,  322. 

7  Ep.  123  §  6  (ap.  Op.  Tert.  50). 

8  Charles,  330,  333  f. 

9  Op.  Min.  332. 


XXXI.] 


ROGER  BACON. 


575 


antiquior  Prisciano 1  !  but  he  mainly  relies  on  Priscian,  without 
slavishly  following  him2.  In  verse  he  quotes  freely  from  Terence, 
Virgil,  Juvenal,  Lucan,  Statius  and  the  later  poets.  He  urges 
that  boys  should  not  be  taught  the  ‘foolish  fables’  of  poets  such 
as  Ovid3;  but,  when  he  needs  a  new  argument  for  the  study  of 
Greek,  he  tacitly  borrows  a  line  from  the  Epistolae  ex  Ponto 
(iii  5,  18): — ‘gratius  ex  ipso  fonte  bibuntur  aquae’4.  He  knew 
Arabic  and  Hebrew,  as  well  as  Greek,  and  the  same  keenness  of 
spirit,  that  prompted  him  to  insist  on  the  importance  of  the  study 
of  Greek,  impelled  him  to  extend  the  bounds  of  science.  In 
science  he  was  at  least  a  century  in  advance  of  his  time,  and,  in 
spite  of  the  long  and  bitter  persecutions  that  he  endured,  he  was 
full  of  hope  for  the  future.  The  spirit  in  which  he  looked  forward 
to  an  age  of  wider  knowledge  was  like  that  expressed  in  one  of  his 
own  citations  from  Seneca5: — ‘veniet  tempus  quo  ista  quae  nunc 
latent,  in  lucem  dies  extrahat  et  longioris  aevi  diligentia’6. 

In  Roger  Bacon’s  day,  notwithstanding  his  eagerness  for 
promoting  the  study  of  Aristotle  in  the  original  Greek,  it  was  the 
Latin  Aristotle  alone  that  was  studied  in  the  schools.  In  the 
very  year  in  which  he  was  writing  his  three  great  works  in  Paris 
(1267),  Oxford  was  prescribing  for  the  course  in  Arts  the  whole 
of  the  Latin  Organon ,  and,  as  an  alternative,  the  De  Anima  and 
the  Physics 7.  The  study  of  the  Physics  in  England  during  this 
century  may  be  illustrated  by  the  ms  of  the  Latin  translation  of 
that  work,  written  in  England  and  illuminated  with  a  representation 
of  a  mediaeval  lecture-room,  in  which  a  closely  packed  group  of 
nine  tonsured  students,  with  their  books  resting  on  their  knees,  is 

1  Gk.  Gr.  41. 

2  Op.  Tert.  245,  and  Gk.  Gr.  131.  3  Op.  Tert.  55. 

4  Printed  as  prose  in  Comp.  Phil.  465  (with  dtilcius). 

5  N.  Q.  vii  25,  4. 

6  Extr.  in  Charles,  p.  393.  See,  in  general,  Hist.  Litt.  de  la  France,  xvi 
138 — 41  ;  E.  Charles,  Roger  Bacon ,  sa  vie,  ses  ouvrages,  ses  doctrines  (1861); 
A.  Parrot,  R.  B.,  sa  perso7ine,  son  ginie,  ses  ccuvres  et  ses  contemporains  (1894); 
Brewer’s  Pref.  to  Opera  Inedita  (1859);  and  Adamson  in  Did.  Nat.  Biogr.; 
and  cp.  Mullinger,  i  154-9;  Rashdall,  ii  522-5;  Gasquet  in  Dublin  Review, 
1898,  1  —  21;  Clifford  Allbutt,  Science  and  Medieval  Thought,  pp.  72,  78  f ; 
and  Hirsch  in  Introd.  to  The  Greek  Grammar  of  Roger  Bacon  (1902). 

7  Rashdall,  ii  455. 


576  RAYMUNDUS  LULLIUS.  DUNS  SCOTUS.  [CHAP. 


listening  to  a  scholar,  who  is  lecturing  with  uplifted  hand,  robed 
in  an  academic  gown  and  enthroned  on  a  professorial  chair1. 

Roger  Bacon’s  interest  in  Greek  and  Arabic  was  shared  by  a 
slightly  later  Franciscan,  the  unwearied  traveller, 
LunhisndUS  Raymundus  Lullius  (1234 — 1315),  who  urged  the 
Pope  and  the  authorities  of  the  university  of  Paris 
to  establish  a  college  in  which  Greek  and  Arabic  and  the  language 
of  the  Tartar  races  could  be  taught  with  a  view  to  the  refutation 
of  the  doctrines  of  Mahomet  and  Averroes2. 

While,  among  the  Franciscans,  the  extreme  Realist,  Alexander 
of  Hales,  and  the  mystic  Bonaventura  had,  in  their  philosophic 
opinions,  agreed  in  adhering  to  the  Augustinian  tradition  as  to 
the  teaching  of  Plato,  the  Dominicans  Albertus  Magnus  and 
Thomas  Aquinas  had  introduced  Aristotelianism  into  theology. 
The  views  of  these  Dominicans  were  opposed  at  Paris  and  Oxford 
(1277),  and  this  opposition  was  followed  by  further  developments 
of  Franciscan  philosophy3.  A  new  form  of  Realism  culminated 
in  the  teaching  of  the  Franciscan  Joannes  Duns 
Scotus,  who  was  possibly  born  at  Dunstan  (near 
Dunstanburgh  Castle)  in  Northumberland,  and  who  opposed  the 
teaching  of  Thomas  Aquinas  at  Oxford,  Paris  (1304)  and  Cologne, 
where  he  died  in  13084.  While  the  system  of  Thomas  Aquinas 
implies  the  harmony  of  faith  and  reason,  Duns  Scotus  has  less 
confidence  in  the  power  of  reason  and  enlarges  the  number  of  the 
doctrines  already  recognised  as  capable  of  being  apprehended  by 
faith  alone.  He  has  also  a  less  high  regard  than  Thomas  for 
the  teaching  of  Aristotle,  and  he  adopts  many  Platonic  and 
Neo-Platonic  opinions.  His  works  include  Quaes tiones  on  Aristotle 
De  Anima  and  Meteor ologica,  and  an  exposition  and  summaries 
and  conclusions,  as  well  as  Quaestiones ,  on  the  Metaphysics.  The 

1  British  Museum,  Royal  12.  G.  v.  (reproduced  in  Social  England,  ill.  ed., 
i  623).  The  double  columns  of  the  text  of  this  MS  have  two  narrow  columns 
of  glosses  on  each  side. 

2  Renan,  Averroh ,  255s  f;  Rashdall,  ii  96;  F.  A.  Gasquet  in  Dublin 
Rroiew,  1898,  365  ;  Hist.  Litt.  de  la  France ,  xxix  1 — 386  ;  Erdmann,  i  §  206. 

3  Rashdall,  ii  527  f. 

4  The  tombstone  in  the  Minoritenkirche  bears  the  inscription: — ‘Scotia  me 
genuit,  Anglia  me  suscepit,  Gallia  me  docuit,  Colonia  me  tenet  ’. 


XXXI.] 


DUNS  SCOTUS. 


577 


Quaes tiones  on  the  Physics  are  now  acknowledged  to  be  spurious. 
In  the  domain  of  pure  Scholarship  he  is  represented  by  the 
Gi'ammatica  Speculativa\  which  is  also  described  as  a  treatise 
De  Modis  Significandi ,  and  is  sometimes  attributed  to  Albert 
of  Saxony2,  although  Duns  Scotus  himself  refers  to  it  in  his  work 
on  Logic,  which  he  wrote  early  in  his  career.  In  his  Grammar, 
he  quotes  Petrus  Helias,  as  well  as  Donatus  and  Priscian. 

Even  in  the  ranks  of  the  Realists,  the  extravagant  Realism  of 
Duns  Scotus  was  followed  by  a  reaction  led  by  Wycliffe  (1324-84), 
who  (for  England  at  least)  is  at  once  ‘the  last  of  the  Schoolmen’ 
and  ‘the  first  of  the  Reformers’.  Humanists  were  agreed  with 
later  Reformers,  such  as  Tyndale  (1530),  in  opposing  the  subtleties 
of  Scotus.  In  1535  (a  date  which  marks  the  close  of  the  influence 
of  Scholasticism  in  England)  the  idol  of  the  Schools  was  dragged 
from  his  pedestal  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge ;  and  one  of  Thomas 
Cromwell’s  commissioners  at  Oxford  writes: — ‘We  have  set  Dunce 
in  Bocardo ,  and  have  utterly  banished  him  Oxford  for  ever,  with 
all  his  blynd  glosses  .  .  .  (At  New  College)  wee  fownd  all  the 
great  Quadrant  Court  full  of  the  Leaves  of  Dunce,  the  wind 
blowing  them  into  every  corner’3.  But,  a  little  more  than  a 
century  later,  a  magnificent  edition  of  his  works,  excluding  the 
biblical  commentaries,  and  including  the  philosophical  and 
dogmatic  writings  alone,  was  published  in  13  folio  volumes  by  the 
Irish  Franciscans  at  Lyons  (1639).  In  the  first  volume  of  this 
edition  he  is  called  ‘amplissimae  scholae  nobilis  antesignanus’, 
and  is  even  described  as  ‘ita  Aristotelis  discipulus,  ut  doceri  ab  eo 
Aristoteles  vellet,  si  viveret’.  He  also  survives,  as  a  typical 
Schoolman,  in  Butler’s  Hudibras  (1664),  where  the  hero  of  the 
poem  is  compared  to  Duns  Scotus  (as  well  as  to  Thomas  Aquinas 
and  ‘the  irrefragable  Doctor’,  Alexander  of  Hales): — 

‘  In  school-divinity  as  able 
As  he  that  hight  Irrefragable; 

A  second  Thomas,  or,  at  once, 

To  name  them  all,  another  Dunce  ’. 

By  a  strange  caprice  of  fortune  the  name  of  one  who  was  celebrated 

1  i  39 — 76  (ed.  1639).  Cp.  Babler’s  Beitriige  (1885),  84-8. 

2  Title  of  Venice  ed.  of  1519.  Albert  taught  in  Paris,  c.  1350-60. 

3  Layton  in  Strype’s  Eccl.  Memorials ,  i  324. 


S. 


37 


578 


WILLIAM  OF  OCKHAM. 


[CHAP. 


as  ‘the  subtle  Doctor’,  and  was  regarded  by  Hooker  as  ‘the 
wittiest  of  school  divines’1,  and  by  Coleridge  as  the  only  English¬ 
man  possessed  of  ‘high  metaphysical  subtlety’2,  has  become 
synonymous  with  stupidity3. 

Duns  Scotus  is  distinguished  from  all  the  other  Schoolmen  by 
what  Prantl4  has  described  as  ‘a  peculiarly  copious  infusion  of 
Byzantine  Logic’.  The  Synopsis  of  Aristotle’s  Logic  compiled 
by  Psellus  (d.  1078) 5  was  translated  by  William  Shirwood,  who 
was  a  prebendary  of  Lincoln  Cathedral  in  1245,  an<^  treasurer  in 
1258  and  12676.  Tt  is  in  this  treatise  that  the  mnemonic  verses 
for  the  ‘Moods  of  the  Four  Figures’,  Barbara,  celarent  etc.,  are 
found  for  the  first  time.  The  Synopsis  of  Psellus  was  afterwards 
incorporated  in  the  seventh  section  of  the  Summulae  Logicales 
of  Petrus  Hispanus  of  Lisbon,  who  died  as  Pope  John  XX 
(XXI)  in  1277,  while  the  first  six  sections  of  Petrus  Hispanus 
contain  the  substance  of  the  Logic  of  Aristotle  and  Boethius7. 

The  teaching  of  the  Dominican  Thomas  Aquinas  was  opposed 
not  only  by  the  Realist  Duns  Scotus,  but  also  by 
ofOckham  another  Franciscan,  the  great  Nominalist  William 
of  Ockham  (d.  1347).  The  date  of  his  birth  is 
unknown,  but,  in  his  boyhood,  he  must  often  have  gazed  on  the 
seven  lancet-windows  of  the  thirteenth  century,  which  make  the 

4 

church  of  his  birthplace  in  Surrey  unique  in  the  annals  of 
architecture.  He  studied  at  Oxford  and  graduated  in  Paris. 
Realism,  which  had  been  shaken  more  than  two  centuries 
before  by  Roscellinus,  was  to  all  appearance  shattered  by 
William  of  Ockham,  who  is  the  last  of  the  greater  Schoolmen. 
He  opposes  the  real  existence  of  universals,  pointing  out  that, 
if  (with  Plato)  an  independent  existence  is  ascribed  to  the 
universal,  the  latter  practically  becomes  an  individual  object. 
He  also  regards  Aristotle’s  doctrine  of  Categories  as  resting  on 


1  Eccl.  Pol.  1  xi  5. 

2  Literary  Remains ,  iii  21. 

3  Trench,  Study  of  Words,  83!;  early  exx.  (1577)  in  Murray,  Oxf  Diet.  s.v. 

4  Logik,  iii  203.  5  p.  403  supra. 

6  Confused  by  Leland  with  William  of  Durham,  Diet.  Nat.  Biogr.  Iii  146. 

7  Val.  Rose  and  Thurot  (as  well  as  Mansel  and  Hamilton)  held,  however, 
that  the  Greek  Synopsis  was  translated  from  the  Latin.  Cp.  Ueberweg,  i  404, 
459  E.  T. ;  and  Mullinger,  i  175 — 186. 


XXXI.] 


WALTER  BURLEY. 


579 


a  division,  not  of  things,  but  of  words,  and  as  primarily  having 
a  grammatical  reference1.  His  chief  service  to  philosophy  is  that 
‘he  brought  again  to  light  .  .  .  the  true  value  of  the  inductive 
method,  as  auxiliary  to  the  deductive, — the  great  truth  which 
Aristotle  had  indicated  and  the  Schoolmen  had  shut  out’2. 

As  an  opponent  of  Ockham  at  Oxford  we  have  Walter 
Burley  (1275 — 1345?),  whose  ignorance  of  Greek 
did  not  debar  him  from  writing  commentaries  on 
the  Ethics  and  Politics ,  which  he  dedicated  to  Richard  of  Bury. 
His  liber  de  vita  ac  moribus  philosophorum ,  extending  from  Thales 
to  Seneca  (and  not  excluding  poets),  was  the  first  attempt  in 
modern  times  at  writing  a  history  of  ancient  philosophy ;  but 
it  is  marred  by  strange  mistakes  in  matters  of  literary  history, 
the  two  Plinies  and  the  two  Senecas  being  treated  as  one, 
Statius  Caecilius  confounded  with  Papinius  Statius,  and  Livy 
with  Livius  Andronicus3.  The  doctrines  of  Averroes  were 
accepted  by  Burley  and  by  the  ‘  prince  of  the  Averroists  ’, 
the  English  Carmelite,  John  of  Baconthorpe  (d.  1346),  but  the 
influence  of  these  two  Englishmen  was  stronger  in  Italy  than 
in  England4. 

Though  the  pretensions  of  Scholasticism  had  been  reduced 
by  William  of  Ockham,  its  methods  survived  in  works  such  as 
that  of  Thomas  Bradwardine,  who  was  archbishop  of  Canterbury 
at  his  death  in  1349.  He  is  the  author  of  a  scholastic  treatise 
De  Causa  Dei ,  founded  mainly  on  Augustine ;  it  is  in  company 
with  Augustine  and  Boethius  that  he  is  respectfully  mentioned 
by  Chaucer5,  and,  in  the  view  of  his  editor,  Sir  Henry  Savile 
(1618),  ‘solidam  ex  Aristotelis  et  Platonis  fontibus  hausit 
philosophiam’.  It  is  true  that  his  pages  abound  in  citations 
from  Seneca,  Ptolemy,  Boethius  and  Cassiodorus,  as  well  as  the 

1  Ueberweg,  i  462  f  and  154. 

2  Mullinger,  i  189;  cp.  Rashdall,  ii  535  f ;  Clifford  Allbutt,  p.  89!; 
H.  Morley,  Eng.  IVriters,  iii  326  f,  v  12 — 14;  and  Haureau,  II  ii  356 — 430. 

3  Haase,  De  Med.  Aevi  stud.  Philol.  13  f.  MS  in  Trinity  Coll.  Library, 
O.  2.  50  (no.  1154  M.  R.  James),  first  ed.  1467  ;  latest  ed.,  Tubingen,  1886. 
Burley  is  said  to  have  written  130  treatises  on  Aristotle  alone. 

4  Renan,  Av.,  3 1 84  f. 

5  Cant.  Tales  15248. 


37—2 


580 


RICHARD  OF  BURY. 


[CHAP. 


Fathers  and  the  Schoolmen,  but  we  have  reason  to  know  that 
all  this  erudition  is  derived  from  the  library  of  his 

?fCBury  friend  Richard  of  Bury  (1287  — 1345) \  Richard, 
the  son  of  Sir  Richard  Aungerville,  was  educated 
at  Oxford,  and  was  appointed  bishop  of  Durham  in  recognition 
of  his  success  as  envoy  (in  1330)  to  the  pope  at  Avignon,  where 
he  made  the  acquaintance  of  Petrarch.  The  latter  describes 
him  as  ca  man  of  ardent  temperament,  not  ignorant  of  literature, 
and  with  a  strong  natural  curiosity  for  obscure  and  recondite 
lore’,  but  the  Italian  attempted  in  vain  to  enlist  the  Englishman’s 
aid  in  determining  the  topography  of  the  ancient  Thule1 2.  As 
the  author  of  the  Philobiblon,  Richard  is  more  of  a  bibliophile 
than  a  scholar,  and  the  few  Greek  words  that  occur  in  its  pages 
do  not  warrant  our  inferring  that  he  had  any  extensive  knowledge 
of  the  language.  He  is  fully  conscious  of  the  great  debt  of 
Latin  literature  to  that  of  Greece3.  He  proposes  to  remedy  the 
prevailing  ignorance  by  providing  a  Greek  as  well  as  a  Hebrew 
grammar  for  the  use  of  students4,  whom  he  describes  as  at 
present  getting  ‘a  smattering  of  the  rules  of  Priscian  and  Donatus, 
and  as  chattering  childishly  concerning  the  Categories  and 
Perihermenias ,  in  the  composition  of  which  Aristotle  spent  his 
whole  soul’5.  He  agrees  with  Bradwardine  and  Holkot  (who  is 
sometimes  supposed  to  have  been  the  real  writer  of  the  Philo- 
biblon 6)  in  quoting  ‘Hermes  Trismegistus’  and  ‘Dionysius  the 
Areopagite’.  His  weakness  for  books  is  indicated  by  the  fact 
that  Richard  II,  abbot  of  St  Albans  (1326-35),  once  bribed  the 
future  bishop  of  Durham  by  presenting  him  with  four  volumes 
from  the  monastic  library,  viz.  Terence,  Virgil,  Quintilian,  and 
Hieronymus  against  Rufinus,  besides  selling  him  for  ^50 

1  Mullinger,  i  198!;  II.  Moi'ley,  iv  61-4. 

2  De  Rebus  Fam.  iii  1  p.  137  Fracassetti ;  cp.  Voigt,  Humanismus , 
ii  248s ;  Mullinger,  i  201. 

3  c.  x  §  162  f. 

4  c.  x  §  167. 

5  c.  ix  §  154,  in  cuius  scriptura...calamum  in  corde  tinxisse  confingitur. 
The  phrase  is  found  in  Isidore  Et.  ii  27,  and  also  earlier,  in  Cassiodorus,  De 
Dialectica  (see  supra,  p.  253). 

6  Holkot  inter  alia  ‘moralised’  the  Metamorphoses',  cp.  Philobiblon,  c.  13 
§  178,  ‘veritas  indagatur  sub  eloquio  typicae  fictionis’. 


XXXI.] 


BURIDAN.  JEAN  DE  JANDUN. 


581 


Buridan 


thirty-two  other  volumes  from  the  same  collection,  including  a 
large  folio  ms  of  the  works  of  John  of  Salisbury1. 

One  of  the  best  known  of  the  supporters  of  the  revived 
Nominalism  of  William  of  Ockham  was  Buridan, 
rector  of  the  university  of  Paris  in  1327  (d.  after 
I35°),  who  wrote  Quaestiones  on  Aristotle’s  Physics ,  De  Anima , 
Parva  Naturalia ,  Ethics  and  Politics2.  His  text-book  of  Logic 
taught  the  student  how  to  find  the  middle  term  of  a  syllogism ; 
and,  as  Aristotle3  holds  that  the  quick  discovery  of  the  middle 
term  shows  acuteness  of  intellect,  this  aid  towards  enabling 
dullards  to  gain  credit  for  acumen  became  famous  as  a  pons 
asinorum.  Buridan’s  proverbial  ass,  which  stands  unmoved 
between  two  bundles  of  hay,  because  it  is  attracted  equally  in 
both  directions,  has  not  been  found  in  any  of  his  works.  In 
his  commentary  on  the  Ethics 4 *,  however,  he  declares  it  impossible 
to  decide  whether  the  will,  when  under  the  influence  of  two 
evenly-balanced  motives,  can  with  equal  facility  decide  for  or 
against  any  given  action ;  and  the  popular  illustration  of  the 
‘ass’  may  have  been  suggested  by  a  passage  in  Aristotle,  De  Caelob. 

Among  the  most  active  exponents  of  Aristotle  was  Jean  de 
Jandun,  who  nevertheless  {c.  1322)  showed  himself 
fully  conscious  of  the  futility  of  the  contemporary  jandun6 
passion  for  argumentation  which  was  only  interested 
in  the  process  of  discussion  and  indifferent  to  its  result0. 
Benedictines,  Dominicans  and  Franciscans  were  at  one  in  their 
keenness  for  expounding  Aristotle.  The  catalogues  of  the 
Sorbonne  for  1290  and  1338  show  how  vast  a  literature  had 
gathered  round  Aristotle  in  the  form  of  translations  and  comments 
by  his  Arabic  and  his  Latin  expositors. 


1  Chron.  Mon.  S.  Albani,  ii  200  (quoted  by  E.  C.  Thomas,  ed.  Philobiblon, 
p.  xxxixf);  cp.  H.  Morley's  Eng.  Writers,  iv  38 — 61. 

2  The  last  two,  printed  in  Paris  in  1500,  were  reprinted  at  Oxford, 
1637-40. 

3  Anal.  Post,  i  34.  4  In  Eth.  Nic.  iii,  Qu.  1. 

5  ii  13,  t(3v  tdwdlfxuv  Kai  totlov  foov  air txooros  (/cat  yap  tovtov  ippeixeiv 

avay Kalov).  Ueberweg,  i  466  E.  T. 

6  Le  Clerc,  Hist.  Lift,  de  la  France  au  14 e  s.,  i  502  f.  This  enthusiastic 
admirer  of  Averroes  wrote  Quaestiones  in  Ar.  libros  Phys.,  Metaph.,  De  Anima, 
De  Caelo  (printed  in  cent,  xv,  xvi).  Cp.  Renan,  Av.  339~424. 


582 


BOLOGNA. 


[CHAP. 


In  the  thirteenth  century  the  extension  of  the  knowledge  of 
Aristotle  beyond  the  narrow  limits  of  the  Organon  widened  the 
intellectual  horizon  by  stimulating  the  study  of  Psychology  and 
Metaphysics.  Aristotle  was  now  recognised  as  the  supreme  and 
infallible  authority,  not  in  Logic  alone,  but  also  in  Metaphysics, 
in  Morals,  and  (unhappily)  in  Physiology  and  Natural  Science 
in  general.  He  was  associated  in  Northern  Europe  with  the 
study  of  speculative  philosophy  and  theology,  and  in  Italy  with 
that  of  medicine,  thus  incidentally  leading  to  an  alliance  between 
the  Faculties  of  Medicine  and  Arts  in  the  Italian  Universities1. 
Under  the  wing  of  Aristotle,  room  was  found  even  for  Averroes. 
About  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth  century  the  Inceptor  in  Arts 
at  the  university  of  Paris  was  compelled  to  swear  that  he  would 
teach  nothing  that  was  inconsistent  with  ‘Aristotle  and  his 
commentator  Averroes’2.  But  the  mediaeval  dependence  on  the 
authority  of  Aristotle  gradually  gave  way.  The  change  was  in 
part  occasioned  by  the  recovery  of  some  of  the  lost  works  of 
ancient  literature,  and  the  transition  from  the  Middle  Ages  to 
the  Renaissance  was  attended  by  a  general  widening  of  the  range 
of  classical  studies,  and  by  a  renewed  interest  in  Plato. 

Early  in  the  twelfth  century  the  study  of  Roman  Law  had 

b  j  ^  been  revived  at  Bologna  by  Irnerius  (c.  1113),  who, 
besides  expounding  the  Roman  code  in  lectures, 
introduced  the  custom  of  explaining  verbal  difficulties  by  means 
of  brief  annotations  known  as  ‘glosses’.  But  Bologna  was  far 
from  being  a  School  of  Law  alone.  It  was  also  famous  as  a 
School  of  Rhetoric  and  the  Liberal  Arts,  where  composition  in 
prose  and  verse  was  practised  under  the  name  of  Dictamen , 
especially  in  the  early  part  of  the  thirteenth  century,  when 
Buoncompagno  was  the  great  master  of  Rhetoric  and  Compo¬ 
sition3.  In  the  same  century  the  example  of  Irnerius  was 
followed  by  Accursius  of  Florence,  who  also  taught  at  Bologna 
(d.  1260).  Whenever  in  his  public  lectures  he  came  upon  a  line 

1 

1  Rashdall,  i  235. 

2  Chartul.  ii  680  (Rashdall,  i  368),  with  the  important  addition,  nisi  in 
casibus  qui  sunt  contra  jidem. 

3  Tiraboschi,  iv  464 — 500;  Rashdall,  i  hi.  He  produced  a  work  in  six 
books  on  the  art  of  writing  letters  (1215). 


XXXI.] 


ACCURSIUS  OF  FLORENCE. 


583 


of  Homer  quoted  by  Justinian,  tradition  describes  him  as  saying: 
Graecum  est ,  nec  potest  legi 1.  The  phrase  would  naturally  occur 
in  his  oral  teaching  only,  and  its  alternative  form,  non  legitur , 
need  mean  nothing  more  than,  ‘  This  is  Greek,  and  is  not 
lectured  upon  ’.  It  has  not  been  found  in  the  published  Glosses 
of  Accursius,  who,  in  his  translation  of  the  Pandects,  as  was 
shown  by  Albericus  Gentilis2  (d.  1611),  correctly  explains  the 
large  number  of  Greek  words  occurring  in  the  text.  It  has  been 
suggested,  however,  that  if  the  phrase  was  used  at  all  by  Accursius, 
it  was  not  due  to  any  ignorance  of  Greek  on  the  part  of  this 
learned  lawyer,  but  to  the  fact  that  the  public  assumption  of  a 
knowledge  of  that  language  would  have  laid  him  open  to  an 
imputation  of  heresy  which  he  deemed  it  prudent  to  avoid3. 
In  the  first  half  of  the  sixteenth  century,  his  ‘  barbarism  ’  and 
his  ‘  ignorance  ’  are  attacked  by  humanists  such  as  Vives  and 
Brassicanus,  Budaeus  and  Alciatus4,  but  none  of  these  deal  with 
his  knowledge  of  Greek. 

Bologna’s  early  fame  as  a  school  of  Law  was  due  (1)  to  the 
study  of  the  Digest,  (2)  to  a  closer  and  more  technical  study  of 
texts,  and  (3)  to  the  fuller  organisation  of  legal  study.  In  the 
interpretation  of  Civil  Law,  the  work  of  that  school  has  been 
described  as  representing,  in  many  respects,  ‘the  most  brilliant 
achievement  of  the  intellect  of  mediaeval  Europe’5.  It  certainly 
promoted  textual  criticism  in  its  own  department  of  study.  The 
jurists  of  Bologna  repeatedly  made  pilgrimages  to  Pisa  to  consult 
the  famous  ms  of  the  Pandects,  which  was  removed  to  Florence 
in  1406,  and  by  the  collation  of  this  and  other  mss  formed  the 
ordinary  text  of  the  Civil  Law6. 

1  W.  Burton,  Gr.  Ling.  Hist.  (1657),  49,  notum  est  illud  Francisci  Accursi, 
quotiens  ad  Homeri  versus  a  Justiniano  citatos  pervenit,  Graecum  est ,  inquit, 
nec  potest  legi.  Cp.  Tiraboschi,  iv  356;  Gidel,  236!.  On  the  omission  of  the 
Greek  Constitutions  of  Justinian  in  the  Western  mss,  cp.  Windscheid,  Lehrbuch 
des  Pandektenrechts ,  ed.  1900,  §  3. 

2  Dial.  (1721),  188;  cp.  E.  Otto,  Vita  Papiniani  (1743),  67. 

3  Gidel,  236  f.  *  Bayle,  s.v.  Accurse. 

5  Rashdall,  i  1 22  f;  Gebhart,  Les  Origines  de  la  Renaissance  en  Italie 
('879),  59  f,  Le  droit  romain...est  la  grande  originality  doctrinale  de  V Italie  an 
moyen  age  ...A  Paris ,  on  dispute  sur  Aristote  dont  le  texte  original  manque;  a 

Bologne ,  a  Rome ,  on  commente  les  monuments  authentiques  du  droit  icrit. 

6  Rashdall,  i  254!.  Cp.  Bartoli’s  Precursori ,  26  f. 


584  BALBI  OF  GENOA.  PETRUS  OF  PADUA.  [CHAP. 


Balbi  of 
Genoa 


While  Accursius  of  Florence  was  lecturing  at  Bologna, 
Bologna  counted  among  her  native  scholars  the  Dominican 
Bonaccursius,  whose  knowledge  of  Greek  led  to  his  being  sent 
to  the  East  in  1230  to  discuss  the  points  at  issue  between  the 
Greek  and  Latin  Churches1.  In  the  same  century  Cremona 
claims  four  hellenists2;  while  Genoa  is  the  home  of  the  learned 
Dominican,  Balbi  (1286)3,  whose  Catholicon  (a  Latin 
Grammar,  followed  by  a  Dictionary  founded  on 
Papias  and  Hugutio)  was  placed,  as  a  book  of 
reference,  in  the  churches  of  France4,  was  printed  by  Gutenberg 
at  Mainz  in  14605,  and  was  translated  into  French  and  used  in 
the  schools  of  Paris  as  late  as  1759.  France  also  adopted  a  Latin 
Grammar  of  the  thirteenth  century  compiled  by  a  Lombard  named 
Caesar,  in  which  the  examples  are  selected  from  Sallust,  Virgil, 
Horace,  Ovid,  Lucan  and  Juvenal6.  Pietro  d’ Abano 
(Petrus  Ajbonensis,  c.  1250 — 1315)  studied  in  Greece 
and  at  Paris,  where  he  began  the  translation  of  the 
Problems  of  Aristotle,  which  he  completed  at  Padua7.  He  also 
translated  portions  of  the  Greek  text  of  Galen,  and  of  the 
problems  ascribed  to  Alexander  of  Aphrodisias,  having  been 
engaged  on  the  latter  during  his  stay  in  Constantinople8. 

In  13 1 1  the  Council  of  Vienne,  in  discussing  the  reunion  of 
the  Churches,  recommended  the  appointment  of 
two  teachers  of  Greek  in  each  of  the  principal  cities 
of  Italy.  Under  Clement  V  (d.  1314)  a  Greek 
school  was  accordingly  opened  in  Rome,  and  money  collected  for 


Petrus  of 
Padua 


Teaching  of 
Greek 


1  Gradenigo,  99;  Tiraboschi,  iv  160;  Krumbacher,  p.  982. 

2  Gradenigo,  102. 

3  ib.  103  f.  The  small  extent  of  his  knowledge  of  Greek  is  indicated  in  the 
words:  ‘hoc  difficile  est  scire,  et  maxime  mihi  non  bene  scienti  linguam 
Graecam ’.  Cp.  Tiraboschi,  iv  356,  481,  526. 

4  Le  Clerc,  Hist.  Litt.  4302.  The  sacristan  of  Saint-Oyan  had  a  Catholicum, 
with  an  iron  chain  attached  to  it  (inventory  of  1483  in  Bibl.  de  I'ecole  des 
chartes,  1  322).  Cp.  Ducange,  §  47. 

5  Hallam,  Lit.  i  804;  facsijnile  of  colophon  in  Bouchot,  Le  Livre ,  33. 

6  ed.  C.  Fierville  (1886). 

7  Jacobus  Philippus  Bergamas,  Suppl.  Ckron.,  p.  331  (Gradenigo,  107). 
The  translation  and  exposition  of  the  Problems  of  Aristotle,  and  of  Alexander 
Aphrod.,  was  printed  at  Venice  in  1519.  The  latter  are  included  in  the  Didot 
Aristotle,  iv  291-8. 

8  Tiraboschi,  v  204. 


XXXI.]  TEACHING  OF  GREEK.  STUDY  OF  ARISTOTLE.  585 


the  founding  of  Greek  and  Hebrew  professorships  at  Oxford1. 
In  1325  there  were  lectures  on  Greek,  as  well  as  Arabic,  Chaldee 
and  Hebrew,  in  the  university  of  Paris,  but  the  papal  legate  was 
instructed  to  take  care  that  these  strange  tongues  were  not  made 
the  means  of  introducing  outlandish  doctrines.  The  suspicion  of 
heresy  clung  to  the  Greek  language  in  particular,  and  bishops 
gave  up  the  traditional  custom  of  signing  their  names  in  Greek. 
There  were  hardly  any  hellenists  except  among  the  Dominicans, 
who,  as  they  had  early  secured  complete  control  of  the  Inquisition, 
could  with  perfect  impunity  learn  as  much  Greek  as  they  pleased2. 
In  the  same  age,  a  certain  prejudice  against  the  study  of  the 
Aristotelian  Logic  is  implied  in  the  story  that,  about  1330,  a 
Bachelor  of  Arts  of  the  university  of  Paris  emerged  from  the 
tomb,  robed  in  a  cloak  of  parchment  black  with  Latin  characters 
scribbled  over  its  folds,  to  warn  his  former  instructor  against  the 
vanities  of  the  world  and  to  tell  him  of  the  torments  he  was 
enduring  in  consequence  of  his  having  studied  Logic  at  Paris3 4. 
After  many  decrees  to  the  contrary,  the  study  of  Aristotle  was 
restored  with  hardly  any  restrictions  by  the  Papal  Legates  of 
1366.  For  the  B.A.  degree  it  was  necessary  to  take  up  Grammar, 
Logic  and  Psychology,  the  first  of  these  including  the  ‘Doctrinale’ 
of  Alexander  of  Villedieu;  the  second,  the  Organon  of  Aristotle 
and  the  Topics  of  Boethius;  and  the  third,  the  De  Anima.  For 
the  License  in  Arts,  the  subjects  comprised  the  Physics  and  the 
Parva  Naturalia ,  and,  for  the  M.A.  degree,  the  greater  part  of 
the  Ethics  and  at  least  three  books  of  the  Meteorological.  But 
Aristotle  was  not  studied  in  the  original.  The  vast  number  of 
lucubrations  on  Aristotle  included  in  the  two  oldest  catalogues  of 
the  library  of  the  Sorbonne  (1290  and  1338)  supply  no  proof  of 
any  direct  acquaintance  with  the  Greek  text5. 

The  university  of  Paris  was  too  closely  bound  up  with  the 

1  Rashdall,  ii  459.  Cp.  Burton,  Ling.  Gr.  Hist.,  54. 

2  Le  Clerc,  Hist.  Litt.  en  14 e  s.  423-d2;  Hist.  Litt.  de  la  France,  xxi  143, 
216;  Gebhart,  Origines  de  la  Renaissance ,  136,  (Les  dominicains )  out  brhle 
beaucoup  de  livres,  en  qnalite  cPinquisi tears,  rnais  ils  en  lisaient  anssi  beaucoup. 

3  Le  Clerc,  l.c .,  502. 

4  De  Launoy,  De  Var.  Arist.  fortuna,  p.  50.  Cp.  Rashdall,  i  436  f. 

5  Le  Clerc,  l.  c. ,  503. 


586 


EARLIER  REVIVALS  OF  LEARNING.  [CHAP. 


study  of  Aristotle  and  too  strictly  subservient  to  his  supreme 
Earlier  authority,  to  be  able  to  take  the  lead  in  that  general 

revivals  of  revival  of  Classical  interests  which  we  associate 

with  the  age  of  the  Renaissance.  Yet  the  Western 
lands  of  Europe,  France  as  well  as  England,  had  seen  more  than 
one  revival  of  learning  in  the  course  of  the  early  Middle  Ages. 
The  first  two  revivals  are  associated  with  the  names  of  Aldhelm 
and  Bede,  and  of  Alcuin  and  Charles  the  Great.  Among  the 
Latin  versifiers  of  the  Caroline  age,  the  Englishman  who  assumes 
the  classic  name  of  Naso  writes  Virgilian  Eclogues  in  which  he 
borrows  phrases  from  the  poets  of  Rome  to  express  his  conscious¬ 
ness  that  he  is  himself  living  in  the  age  of  a  renascence : — 

‘rursus  in  antiquos  mutataque  saecula  mores; 
aurea  Roma  iterum  renovata  renascitur  orbi’1. 

Even  under  the  successors  of  Charles  the  Great,  Latin  verse  lived 
on  in  the  lines  of  Ermoldus  Nigellus  and  of  Abbo  Cernuus,  while 
Greek  prose  found  an  interpreter  in  the  person  of  Joannes  Scotus. 
In  the  tenth  century  Gerbert  had  been  conspicuous  in  the  study 
of  Cicero;  in  the  twelfth,  Cicero  and  Seneca  had  inspired  the 
moral  teaching  of  Gautier  de  Chatillon2;  and,  in  the  thirteenth, 
the  composition  of  works  in  Latin  prose  had  flourished  in  England 
under  Henry  II,  while  in  France  a  wide  acquaintance  with  Latin 
literature  had  been  displayed  in  the  vast  encyclopaedia  of  Vincent 
of  Beauvais3.  In  the  province  of  education,  the  changes  which 
began  to  pass  over  the  schools  of  France  in  the  eleventh  century 
had  culminated  in  a  great  intellectual  renaissance  in  the  early  part 
of  the  twelfth,  during  the  age  of  Abelard4.  Throughout  the 
Middle  Ages  the  region  of  France  which  lay  North  of  the  Loire 
had  taken  the  lead  in  the  education  of  Europe,  but  that  region 
had  been  too  completely  permeated  and  possessed  by  the 

1  Eel.  i  8  in  Poetae  Lat.  Aevi  Car.  i  385  Dummler;  Ovid,  A.  A.  iii  113, 
‘aurea  Roma’;  Calpurnius,  Eel.  i  42,  ‘aurea  secura  cum  pace  renascitur  orbi’; 
cp.  Korting’s  Lilt.  It.  iii  82. 

2  P*  53 1  supra.  3  Cp.  Bartoli’s  Precursorit  10 — 31. 

4  Rashdall,  i  30 — 71.  John  of  Salisbury,  Met.  i  5,  tells  us  that,  under  the 
influence  of  amatores  litterarum  (such  as  Abelard,  William  of  Conches  and 

Theodoric  of  Chartres),  redierunt  artes  et,  quasi  jure  postliminii,  honorem 
pristinum  ?iactae  sunt,  et  post  exsilhun  gratiam  et  gloriam  ampliorem. 


XXXI.]  CAUSES  OF  THE  RENAISSANCE  IN  ITALY.  587 


mediaeval  spirit  to  become  the  native  land  of  the  Renaissance1. 
That  honour  was  reserved  for  the  classic  soil  of  „  . 

Italy,  where  the  Renaissance  was  slowly  called  into  Renaissance 
life  by  a  variety  of  causes2,  by  the  prevailing  spirit  m  Italy 
of  intellectual  freedom,  by  the  social  and  political  condition  of 
the  country,  by  the  continuous  tradition  of  the  Latin  language,  by 
the  constant  witness  to  the  existence  of  Greek  in  the  region  once 
known  as  Magna  Graecia ,  by  the  survival  of  the  remains  of  antique 
sculpture,  such  as  the  marble  reliefs  which  inspired  the  art  of 
Niccola  Pisano3,  and  by  the  abiding  presence  of  the  ruins  of 
ancient  Rome,  which  aroused  the  enthusiasm,  not  only  of 
unnamed  pilgrims  of  the  tenth  and  twelfth  centuries,  but  also 
of  men  of  mark  such  as  Giovanni  Villani4,  and  Rienzi5,  and 
Petrarch,  in  the  first  third  of  the  fourteenth6.  ‘During  the 
gloomy  and  disastrous  centuries  which  followed  the  downfall  of 
the  Roman  Empire,  Italy  had  preserved,  in  a  far  greater  degree 
than  any  other  part  of  Western  Europe,  the  traces  of  ancient 
civilisation.  The  night  which  descended  upon  her  was  the  night 
of  an  Arctic  summer.  The  dawn  began  to  reappear  before  the 
last  reflection  of  the  preceding  sunset  had  faded  from  the  horizon’7. 
But,  although  the  night  was  luminous,  the  sun  was  absent,  and 
Petrarch  was  the  morning-star  of  a  new  day;  yet  there  were  other 
stars  in  the  sky  before  the  star  of  Petrarch. 

The  Renaissance  generally  associated  in  its  early  stages  with 
the  name  of  Petrarch,  was  a  gradual  and  protracted  process,  and 
not  a  single  and  sudden  event  with  a  fixed  and  definite  date. 
One  of  the  prominent  characteristics  of  that  Renaissance  was 

1  Korting,  Litt.  It .  iii  93. 

2  Cp.  Gebhart’s  Origines  de  la  Renaissance  en  Italic  (1879),  esp.  pp.  51 — 
146.  Sicily  and  Apulia  had  already  seen  a  temporary  revival  of  learning 
under  Frederic  II  (pp.  544-6  supra). 

3  Vasari,  Vita ,  init. 

4  J300;  Cron,  viii  6;  Balzani’s  Chroniclers ,  332. 

5  Voigt,  Humanismus ,  i  53s. 

6  Petrarch,  De  Rebus  Fam.  vi  2  p.  314  Fracassetti. 

7  Macaulay,  Machiavelli  (1827),  p.  30  of  Essays  (1861).  Ozanam,  Doc. 
InJdits  (1850),  p.  28,  has  similarly  described  ‘the  night  which  intervened 
between  the  intellectual  daylight  of  antiquity  and  the  dawn  of  the  Renaissance’ 
as  une  de  ces  nulls  lumineuses  oil  les  dernieres  clartes  du  soir  se  prolongent 
jusqiiaux  premieres  blancheurs  du  matin. 


588 


LOVATO  AND  MUSSATO. 


[CHAP. 


Petrarch’s  enthusiasm  for  Cicero.  But  the  Umbrian  poet 
Jacopone  da  Todi,  who  died  in  1306,  two  years  after  the  birth 
of  Petrarch,  mentions  the  ‘melody’  of  Cicero’s  writings  on  the 
laws  of  Rome  as  one  of  the  vanities  that  he  abandoned  when  he 
renounced  the  world1. 

Among  the  immediate  precursors  of  the  Renaissance  in  Italy 
we  may  here  mention  two  prominent  representatives 
the  *r enais  °f  Latin  poetry  at  Padua.  One  of  these,  the 

sance;  Lovato  eloquent  and  learned  Lovato  (d.  1309),  was  the 
first  to  recognise  the  rules  of  metre  followed  by 
Seneca a.  The  other,  his  younger  contemporary  and  the  inheritor 
of  his  literary  interests,  was  the  eminent  statesman,  historian  and 
poet,  Albertino  Mussato  (1261 — 1329).  Mussato  was  the  author 
of  poems  abounding  in  reminiscences  of  Virgil,  Ovid  and  Lucan, 
and  of  works  in  prose  recalling  Livy’s  eulogies  of  the  old  Roman 
heroes,  Camillus  and  Scipio  Africanus.  Seneca  is  his  model  in 
the  diction,  and,  to  some  extent,  in  the  general  framework  of  his 
celebrated  tragedy,  the  Eccerinis,  a  work  founded  on  the  career  of 
the  brutal  tyrant,  Ezzelino,  who  became  lord  of  Padua  in  1237. 
In  a  literary  controversy  with  a  Dominican  monk  of  Mantua, 
Mussato  strangely  contends  that  poetry  is  a  branch  of  theology; 
and,  although  he  imitates  ancient  models  in  all  his  works,  whether 
in  verse  or  prose,  he  has  only  a  dim  apprehension  of  the  beauty 
of  the  old  classical  literature.  He  thus  belongs  to  the  early 
twilight  rather  than  the  actual  dawn  of  the  Renaissance3. 

A  smoother  and  more  flowing  style  in  Latin  prose  was  attained 
by  the  two  historians,  Giovanni  da  Cermenate  of  Milan  (1312), 
who  successfully  imitated  Livy  and  Sallust4,  and  Ferreto  of 

1  Le  poesie  spirituali  (1617)  p.  5,  Rinunzia  del  Mondo,  str.  20,  lassovi  le 
scritture  antiche ,  j  che  mi  eran  cotanto  antic  he ,  |  et  le  Tulliane  rubriche,  |  che  mi 
fean  tal  melodia ;  Gebhart,  157;  Norden,  738. 

2  Cp.  Muratori,  Script.  Rer.  I  tal.  x  1,  ‘  habuit...  Padua  ci  vitas  Lovatum, 
Bonatinum  et  Mussatum,  qui  delectarentur  metris  et  amice  versibus  con- 
certarent’;  Korting,  Litt.  It.  iii  (1884)  35 5 f ;  Wiese  u.  Percopo,  It.  Litt. 
12 o;  Novati,  quoted  in  Wicksteed  and  Gardner’s  Dante  and  Giovanni  del 
Virgilio ,  36. 

3  Korting,  iii  302-55;  Voigt,  Humanismus ,  i  16 — 183;  Balzani’s  Chroni¬ 
clers ,  275-91,  esp.  287!;  Cloetta,  Beitrdge ,  ii  (1892)  5 — 76;  Wicksteed  and 
Gardner,  1 — 58. 

4  Tiraboschi,  v  451 ;  Voigt,  i  193. 


XXXI.]  CERMENATE.  FERRETO.  DEL  VIRGILIO.  589 


Vicenza  (d.  1337),  who  made  Virgil,  Lucan,  Statius  and  Claudian 
his  models  in  an  epic  in  honour  of  Can  Grande  of  _ 

1  Cermenate. 

Verona1.  It  was  the  Latin  epic  on  a  modern  Ferreto. 
heroic  theme  that  Giovanni  del  Virgilio  of  Bologna  Del  Virfflho 
suggested  to  Dante,  when  he  had  the  audacity  to  send  him  (early 
in  1319)  a  set  of  Latin  hexameters,  criticising  with  a  somewhat 
pedantic  and  superior  air  the  poet’s  preference  of  Italian  to  Latin 
as  the  language  of  the  Divina  Commedia.  Del  Virgilio’s  claim  to 
be  regarded  as  a  precursor  of  the  Renaissance  rests  mainly  on  his 
admiration  for  Virgil,  whose  name  was  either  assumed  by  himself 
or  won  from  others  by  his  success  as  an  exponent  or  an  imitator 
of  the  Roman  poet2.  He  has  no  claim  on  the  ground  of  any 
revival  of  the  Virgilian  Eclogue,  for  the  credit  of  that  rather 
unhappy  innovation  is  clearly  due  to  Mussato3  and  Dante.  The 
only  direct  reminiscence  of  Virgil  in  Dante’s  first  Eclogue  is  caught 
up  by  Del  Virgilio,  who  adds  seven  more  in  his  reply4;  but,  in  a  poem 
of  1327,  six  years  after  Dante’s  death,  Virgilio  himself  describes 
the  pastoral  flute  of  Virgil  as  first  breathed  upon  by  Dante : — 


‘  fistula  non  posthac  nostris  inflata  poetis 
donee  ea  mecum  certaret  Tityrus  olim, 
Lydius  Adriaco  qui  nunc  in  litore  dormit’5. 


Since  the  time  of  Virgil,  Eclogues  had  been  written  by  Calpurnius 
under  Nero  and  by  Alcuin  under  Charles  the  Great,  and 
Benedictine  Bucolics  on  sacred  themes  had  been  attempted  from 
the  ninth  to  the  twelfth  centuries6,  but  their  revival  is  here 
ascribed  to  Dante.  In  the  year  of  that  poet’s  death  (1321), 
Del  Virgilio  was  the  only  professor  of  poetry,  the  only  interpreter 
of  Virgil,  Lucan,  Statius  and  the  author  of  the  Metamorphoses, 
left  in  Bologna7.  He  had  repeatedly  sent  his  poetic  greetings  to 
the  exile  at  Ravenna,  and  he  now  wrote  a  brief  poem  in  his 
memory8.  Six  years  later  he  sent  a  Virgilian  Eclogue  to  one  who 
in  his  day  was  at  least  as  famous  a  poet  as  Dante,  Mussato,  then 


1  Korting,  iii  358.  Cp.  Balzani’s  Chroniclers ,  272-4. 

2  Wicksteed  and  Gardner,  12 1.  3  Korting,  iii  324,  365. 

4  Wicksteed  and  Gardner,  207  f.  5  ib.  176. 

6  ib.  230  f;  e.g.  the  ‘egloga’  ascribed  to  Paschasius  Radbertus  (d.  after 

856),  in  Poet.  Lat.  Aevi  Car.  iii  45. 

7  ib.  133.  8  ib.  174. 


590 


BRUNETTO  LATIN I. 


[CHAP. 


Brunetto 

Latini 


in  exile  at  Chioggia.  Virgilio  was  also  the  author  of  a  treatise  on 
the  Metamorphoses1,  which  proves  that  the  mediaeval  passion  for 
‘moralising’  and  allegorizing  mythology  was  as  strong  as  ever 
towards  the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages. 

A  still  earlier  precursor  of  the  Renaissance  may  be  justly 
recognised  in  the  person  of  the  eminent  notary  of 
Florence,  Brunetto  Latini  (d.  1290),  who,  during 
his  exile  in  France  (1260-7),  wrote  his  Tesoretto 
and  his  Tesoro  in  Italian  verse  and  French  prose  respectively. 
The  former  is  a  didactic  poem  in  an  allegorical  form ;  the  latter, 
an  encyclopaedia  of  learning  ranging  over  History,  Astronomy, 
Geography,  Zoology,  Ethics,  Rhetoric  and  Politics.  In  treating 
of  Rhetoric,  the  author  gives  us  a  French  translation  of  Caesar’s 
and  Cato’s  speeches  in  the  Catiline  of  Sallust.  Italian  translations 
of  the  first  seventeen  chapters  of  the  De  Inventione ,  and  of  Cicero’s 
speeches  in  defence  of  Ligarius,  Marcellus  and  Deiotarus,  were 
also  executed  by  Brunetto ;  but  the  renderings  of  Cicero’s 
‘  Catilinarians  ’  and  of  the  speeches  in  Livy,  which  have  been 
ascribed  to  him,  probably  belong  to  the  times  of  the  Renaissance. 
The  general  cast  of  both  of  his  best-known  works  is  mainly 
mediaeval,  but  he  obviously  takes  a  keen  delight  in  quoting  the 
Classics  in  his  Tesoro,  the  work  in  which  he  ‘  still  lives  Such  is 
the  language  which  he  is  made  to  apply  to  his  masterpiece  in  that 
Canto  in  which  Dante  mysteriously  confesses  that  he  had  learned 
from  its  author  ‘how  man  becomes  eternal’2. 

Dante  (1265 — 1321)  is  a  precursor  of  the  Renaissance  in  a 
limited  sense  alone, — in  his  breaking  loose  from 
the  mediaeval  tradition  by  writing  his  great  poem 
not  in  the  Latin  but  in  the  Tuscan  tongue ;  in  his  delight  in 
minutely  realistic  descriptions,  whether  of  the  tortures  of  Hell  or 
of  the  course  of  his  travels  through  all  the  three  realms  of  the 
spirit-world ;  in  his  proud  self-consciousness  as  a  poet ;  and  in  his 
personal  longing  for  immortal  fame.  His  individualism  is  also 
apparent  in  the  autobiographical  facts  imbedded  in  the  mediaeval 
mysticism  of  the  Vita  Nuova.  The  Convito,  begun  as  a  com¬ 
mentary  on  that  work,  is  written  in  a  comparatively  modern  spirit. 


Dante 


1  Wicksteed  and  Gardner,  120,  314-21. 

2  Inf.  xv ;  Korting,  iii  370 — 401- 


XXXI.] 


DANTE. 


591 


The  De  Monarchia,  again,  combines  the  political  principles  of  the 
Middle  Ages  with  a  new  enthusiasm  for  the  traditions  of  the  old 
Roman  Empire;  while  the  De  Vulgari  Eloquio  discriminates 
between  different  varieties  of  Latin  prose,  and  recognises  the 
claim  of  a  modern  language  to  a  strictly  scientific  investigation. 
It  is  a  new  thing  to  find  such  wide  learning  outside  the  clerical 
order.  Dante  is  true  to  the  strictest  theology  of  the  Middle  Ages, 
but  at  the  same  time  he  is  as  learned  a  layman  as  any  that  we 
shall  meet  in  the  coming  age  of  the  Renaissance1. 

The  speculative  basis  of  Dante’s  great  poem  is  furnished 
by  the  scholastic  combination  of  Christian  theology  with  the 
Aristotelian  philosophy.  For  Aristotle  himself  he  has  the  highest 
regard.  In  the  Limbo  of  the  unbaptized,  in  a  green  meadow 
surrounded  by  the  sevenfold  walls  of  a  noble  castle,  the  poet  sees 
‘the  Master  of  them  that  know’,  with  Plato  and  Socrates  hard  by; 
and,  amongst  others,  Tully  and  Livy  and  the  ‘moralist  Seneca’, 
with  Avicenna,  and  Averroes  ‘who  the  great  Comment  made’2. 
In  his  works  in  general  he  frequently  refers  to  the  Latin  Classics. 
He  ‘was  born  a  student’  (says  Professor  Norton),  ‘as  he  was 
born  a  poet,  and  had  he  never  written  a  single  poem,  he  would  still 
have  been  famous  as  the  most  profound  scholar  of  his  times’3. 
His  references  to  ancient  literature  have  been  collected  and 
classified,  and  the  following  list  shows  approximately  the  number 
of  times  he  quotes  each  of  the  works  mentioned: — the  Vulgate 
(500  +  ),  Aristotle  (300 +  )4,  Virgil  ( c .  200),  Ovid  {c.  100),  Cicero 
(e.  50)5 6,  Statius  and  Boethius  (30 — 40),  Horace  (7)®,  Livy  and 
Orosius  (10 — 20);  the  Timaeus  of  Plato  in  the  translation  by 
Chalcidius,  with  Homer,  Juvenal,  Seneca,  Ptolemy,  Aesop,  Valerius 
Maximus  and  St  Augustine  (less  than  10  each)7.  The  above  list 
does  not  include  the  references  to  the  Schoolmen,  such  as  Peter 

1  Korting,  iii  401-15;  Gebhart,  282 — 308.  Cp.  Villani,  Cron,  ix  136, 
(Dante)  Tu  grande  letterato  quasi  in  ogni  scienza,  tutto  fosse  laico’.  See  also 
Burckhardt,  Renaissance ,  Part  11  c.  3,  and  Voigt,  i  n — 153. 

2  Inf.  iv  130 — 144. 

a  Norton’s  New  Life  of  Dante,  p.  102. 

4  Mainly  the  Ethics ,  Physics ,  Metaphysics  and  De  Anima. 

5  De  Off. ,  Sen.,  Am.',  also  De  Finibus. 

6  Six  from  Ars  Poctica,  and  one  from  Ep.  i  14,  43. 

7  E.  Moore,  Studies,  i  4  f. 


592 


DANTE. 


[CHAP. 


Lombard,  Bonaventura,  Hugh  and  Richard  of  St  Victor  and 
(above  all)  Albertus  Magnus,  and  Thomas  Aquinas,  whose  greatest 
disciple  is  Dante1.  Sometimes,  when  he  appears  to  be  quoting 
Aristotle,  his  real  authority  is  Albertus  Magnus.  Thus,  in  the 
Convito  (ii  15),  where  he  discusses  the  theories  on  the  Origin 
of  the  Milky  Way,  his  statement  of  the  opinions  of  Anaxagoras 
and  Democritus  is  derived,  not  from  Aristotle’s  Meteorologica  (i  8), 
but  from  the  corresponding  work  of  Albertus  Magnus,  who  knew 
the  Meteorologica  in  an  Arabic  translation  alone.  Dante  here 
compares  the  Old  translation  with  the  New,  meaning  by  the  ‘Old’ 
one  of  the  renderings  from  the  Arabic,  and  by  the  ‘New’  one  of 
those  from  the  Greek2.  Again,  in  the  Cotivito  (iii  9),  where  he 
discusses  the  nature  of  vision,  and  refers  to  Aristotle,  di  Senso 
e  Sensato,  his  statement  as  to  Aristotle’s  views  apparently  comes 
from  the  treatise  by  Albertus  Magnus,  which  bears  the  correspond¬ 
ing  title3.  Dante’s  eight  references  to  Pythagoras  are,  directly 
or  indirectly,  due  in  four  cases  to  Aristotle,  in  one  to  Diogenes 
Laertius,  and  in  the  rest  to  Cicero  or  St  Augustine4.  He  follows 
Albertus  and  the  Arabs  in  treating  the  De  Partibus  as  a  portion 
of  the  Historia  Animalium 5.  Like  Apollinaris  Sidonius  and 
Vincent  of  Beauvais,  he  apparently  regards  Seneca  the  moralist 
as  different  from  the  poet,  and  he  wrongly  describes  the  De 
Quatuor  Virtutibus  as  the  work  of  Seneca6.  On  the  death  of 
Beatrice,  he  finds  consolation  in  Cicero’s  Laelius  and  in  Boethius7. 
On  her  first  appearance  in  the  Purgatorio  he  indulges  his  frequent 
fancy  for  interweaving  the  sacred  and  the  secular  by  describing 
her  as  welcomed  in  the  words  of  the  Vulgate  and  of  Virgil  alike, 
benedictus  qui  venis  being  immediately  followed  by  manibus  0  date 
lilia  plenis 8.  His  five  great  pagan  poets  are  Homer,  Virgil, 
Horace,  Ovid,  Lucan9.  Statius  is  not  found  in  the  Piferno ,  his 

1  Contrapasso  {Inf.  xxviii  142),  Aristotle’s  dvTLirejrovdds,  comes  from 
Aquinas,  Summa ,  ii2  qu.  61,  art.  4.  Cp.,  in  general,  Ozanam,  Dante  et 
la  Philosophie  Catholique  an  x iii  s.  (1839),  and  Hettinger,  on  Aquinas  and 
Dante  {Die  Theologie  der  Gottlichen  Komodie ,  1879),  with  other  works  cited  in 
Ueberweg,  ii  §  33,  p.  2908,  esp.  Berthier’s  Comm.  (Turin,  1893  f). 

-  .Paget  Toynbee,  Dante  Studies ,  42  f;  cp.  Moore,  i  305-18. 

3  ib.  53.  4  ib.  87—96.  5  ib.  247b 

6  De  Mon.  ii  5;  Toynbee,  155  f.  7  Conv.  ii  13,  14;  Moore,  i  282. 

8  Ptirg.  xxx  19;  Moore,  i  26  f.  9  Inf.  iv  88. 


XXXI.] 


DANTE. 


593 


place,  as  a  ‘Christian’,  converted  by  Virgil’s  Fourth  Eclogue ,  being 
in  the  Pur  gator iox.  Elsewhere,  Dante  names  Virgil,  Ovid,  Lucan 
and  Statius  alone  as  the  ‘regular’  Latin  poets2,  his  omission  of 
Horace  being  possibly  due  to  a  mere  accident3,  especially  as  he 
has  previously  quoted  the  Ars  Poetica  with  respect,  as  the  work  of 
magister  nos  ter  Horatius 4.  His  standard  authors  in  Latin  prose 
are  Cicero,  Livy,  Pliny,  Frontinus  and  Orosius5. 

His  knowledge  of  Greek  appears  to  have  been  practically  nil*. 
The  only  four  references  to  Homer  are  borrowed  from  others7. 
It  is  true  that  he  quotes  the  Greek  word  hormen 8  and  carefully 
explains  filosofo  as  amatore  di  sapienza*\  but,  on  the  other  hand, 
he  blindly  follows  Hugutio  in  deriving  autore  from  autentin 
(avOivTrjv)10,  ‘worthy  of  trust  and  obedience’,  adding  on  his  own 
account  that  Aristotle  is  most  ‘worthy  of’  such  ‘trust’,  and  that 
his  teaching  is  of  the  ‘highest  authority’11.  But  Dante’s  Aristotle 
was  only  the  Latin  Aristotle,  and  of  the  treatise  on  Poetry  he 
unfortunately  knew  nothing.  Like  the  mediaeval  scholars  in 
general,  he  lay  in  bondage  to  the  Latin  versions  of  the  Timaeus 
and  of  Aristotle,  and  it  was  high  time  for  a  revival  of  learning  to 
restore  a  knowledge  of  the  Greek  texts,  and  to  extend  the  range 
of  study,  and  inspire  it  with  a  new  interest,  even  in  the  case  of 
Latin  literature. 

1  xxi  f.  Cp.  Verrall  in  Independent  Review,  Nov.  1903. 

2  De  Vulgari  Eloquio,  ii  6. 

3  Hor atiurn  might  easily  have  fallen  out  before  St atium. 

4  De  Vulg.  EL,  ii  4.  5  ib.  ii  6. 

6  Manetti  (d.  1459),  Boccaccii  Vita,  ‘graecarum  litterarum  cognitione  Dantes 
omnino  caruit’;  Gradenigo,  no. 

7  Moore,  i  341;  Toynbee,  204b  In  Conv.  i  7  ult.,  ‘Homer  cannot  be 
rendered  into  Latin’... 

8  Conv.  iv  21.  9  ib.  iii  11. 

10  Priscian,  v  20,  ‘ auctor ,  quando  avOtvTrjv  significat,  commune  est;  quando 
a v£r)TT]v,  auctrix  facit  femininum  ’.  Eberhard,  Graecismus,  c.  xi,  distinguishes 
auctor  ‘  ab  augendo  from  autor  ‘  ab  authentin,  quod  Grecum  est  ’. 

11  Conv.  iv  6.  Dante’s  relation  to  Greek  is  discussed  by  Gradenigo,  Lett. 
Greco- Italiana,  nof,  and  Celestino  Cavedone  (Modena,  i860);  cp.  Moore’s 
Studies,  i  164  n;  and,  on  Dante's  Classical  studies  in  general,  Schuck  in  Neue 
Jahrb.  (1865),  ii  253 — 281. 


S. 


38 


CHAPTER  XXXII. 


THE  SURVIVAL  OF  THE  LATIN  CLASSICS. 


While  the  Greek  Classics  owed  their  safe  preservation  to  the 
libraries  of  Constantinople  and  to  the  monasteries  of  the  East, 
it  is  primarily  to  the  monasteries  of  the  West  that  we  are  indebted 
for  the  survival  of  the  Latin  Classics.  A  certain  prejudice  against 
Prejudice  pagan  learning,  and  especially  against  pagan  poetry, 

against  the  had  doubtless  been  traditional  in  the  Christian 

Classics  •  m 

community.  Tertullian1  asked,  what  had  Athens 
to  do  with  Jerusalem,  or  the  Academy  with  the  Church;  and 
Jerome2,  what  concern  had  Horace  with  the  Psalter,  Virgil  with 
the  Gospel,  and  Cicero  with  the  Apostles?  But  Jerome3  agreed 
with  Origen4  in  holding  that  it  was  as  lawful  for  Christians,  as  for 
Jews,  to  ‘spoil  the  Egyptians’,  and  (after  due  precautions)  to 
appropriate  any  prize  they  had  captured  from  the  hands  of  the 
enemy5.  The  prejudice,  however,  lived  on  among  Churchmen 
such  as  Gregory  the  Great,  Alcuin  of  Tours  and  Odo  of  Cluni6. 
In  a  similar  spirit,  Honorius  of  Autun,  in  the  preface  to  the 
Gemma  Animae  ( c .  1120),  asks  £how  is  the  soul  profited  by  the 
strife  of  Hector,  the  arguments  of  Plato,  the  poems  of  Virgil,  or 


1  De  Praescr.  7  (Migne  ii  20). 

2  Ep.  22  §  29  (Migne,  xxii  416) ;  cp.  St  Augustine,  De  Doctrina  Christiana , 
ii  40  (60),  Migne,  xxxiv  63 ;  Maitland’s  Dark  Ages,  1733. 

3  Ep.  70  (Migne,  xxii  665). 

4  Migne,  xi  87,  xii  490.  Cp.  Norden’s  Kunstprosa ,  675-80. 

5  Deut.  xxi  10. 

6  pp.  432,  459  f,  485  supra,  and  Norden,  531 ;  also  (on  Alcuin  and  Virgil) 
Schmid,  Gesch.  der  Erziehung,  n  i  177. 


CHAP.  XXXII.]  PREJUDICE  AGAINST  THE  CLASSICS.  595 


the  elegies  of  Ovid,  who,  with  others  like  them,  are  now  gnashing 
their  teeth  in  the  prison  of  the  infernal  Babylon,  under  the  cruel 
tyranny  of  Pluto’?1  Even  Abelard  (who  quotes  Jerome’s  opinion) 
inquires  ‘why  the  bishops  and  doctors  of  the  Christian  religion  do 
not  expel  from  the  City  of  God  those  poets  whom  Plato  forbade 
to  enter  into  his  city  of  the  world’2;  while  Nicholas,  the  secretary 
of  Bernard  of  Clairvaux,  (writing  after  1153,)  sighs  over  the  charm 
he  had  once  found  in  Cicero  and  the  poets,  and  in  the  golden 
sayings  of  the  philosophers  and  the  ‘songs  of  the  Sirens’3.  The 
Benedictine  chronicler,  Rodulfus  Glaber  (d.  1050),  tells  the 
story  of  one  Vilgardus,  a  student  of  ‘grammar’  in  the  neighbour¬ 
hood  of  Ravenna,  who,  in  a  dream,  saw  three  demons  who  had 
assumed  the  forms  of  Virgil,  Horace  and  Juvenal,  the  study  of 
whose  texts  betrayed  him  into  heretical  opinions,  for  which  he 
was  condemned  by  Peter,  archbishop  of  Ravenna  (in  or  before 
971)4.  Herbert  de  Losinga,  the  first  bishop  of  Norwich  (d.  1119), 
had  a  dream  that  compelled  him  to  renounce  the  reading  and  the 
imitation  of  Virgil  and  Ovid5.  Poets  (unless  their  writings  were 
of  highly  moral  purport,  or  capable  of  being  ‘moralised’  by  means 
of  allegorical  interpretation)  were  in  fact  regarded  with  far  less 
favour  than  philosophers.  One  of  the  celebrated  illustrations  in 
the  Hortus  Deliciarum ,  the  pictorial  encyclopaedia  composed,  or 
compiled,  by  the  abbess  Herrad  of  Landsperg  for  the  nuns  of 
Mont  St  Odile  in  Alsace  (1167-95),  represents  two  large  con¬ 
centric  circles  filled  with  the  following  figures.  In  the  upper  half 
of  the  inner  circle,  Philosophy,  a  queenly  form  whose  crown  is 
parted  into  the  semblance  of  three  human  heads  identified  as 
‘Ethics’,  ‘Logic’  and  ‘Physics’,  may  be  seen  enthroned  in  majesty, 
while,  in  the  lower  half  of  the  same  circle,  we  have  Socrates  and 
Plato  seated  at  desks  with  books  open  before  them.  The  outer 
circle  is  filled  with  a  series  of  seven  arches,  and,  under  each  of 

1  Migne,  clxxii  543;  Maitland,  i85a. 

2  Theol.  Christ,  ii,  Migne,  clxxxviii  1210  D;  Maitland,  1863. 

3  ‘Petri  Damiani’  Sertno  61,  p.  296 e  Caetani  (Migne,  cxliv  852  d). 

4  Hist,  ii  c.  12  (Migne,  cxlii) ;  Tiraboschi,  iii  192;  Giesebrecht,  De  litt. 
studiis  (Ital.  trans.  p.  24). 

5  Epp.  p.  53-7,  cp.  pp.  63,  93.  Nevertheless  he  tells  his  pupils  to  take 
Ovid  as  their  model  in  Latin  verse  (p.  75),  and  himself  quotes  Tristia,  i  9, 

5 — 6  (Goulburn  and  Symonds,  Life  and  Letters  of  H.  de  L.,  i  249). 

38—2 


596 


PREJUDICE  AGAINST  THE  CLASSICS  [CHAP. 


these,  we  have  a  personification  of  one  of  the  Seven  Liberal  Arts, 
with  her  emblems  in  her  hands,  Grammar  with  a  book  and  a 
birch,  Rhetoric  with  a  tablet  and  stylus,  and  similarly  with  the 
rest.  Below  and  outside  this  outer  circle  are  four  ‘poets  or 
magicians’,  each  of  them  writing  at  a  desk,  with  an  evil  spirit 
prompting  him,  in  the  form  of  a  raven  hovering  near  his  ear. 
The  whole  design  is  further  embellished  with  many  mottoes  in 
appropriate  places1. 

The  philosophical  works  of  Cicero  had  supplied  a  model  for 
the  Latin  prose  of  the  Fathers  and  of  their  successors  in  the 
Middle  Ages;  but  even  Cicero,  it  was  sometimes  felt,  might  be 
studied  with  an  undue  devotion.  In  1150  we  find  the  prior 
of  Hildesheim  writing  to  the  abbot  of  Corvey  in  the  following 
terms  : — 

‘Though  you  desire  to  have  the  books  of  Tully,  I  know  that  you  are  a 
Christian  and  not  a  Ciceronian2.  You  go  over  to  the  camp  of  the  enemy,  not 
as  a  deserter,  but  as  a  spy.  I  should  therefore  have  sent  you  the  books  of 
Tully  which  we  have, — De  Re  Agraria,  Philippics  and  Epistles ,  but  that  it  is 
not  our  custom  that  any  books  should  be  lent  to  any  person  without  good 
pledges.  Send  us  therefore  the  Nodes  Aiticae  of  Aulus  Gellius  and  Origen  On 
the  Canticles' .  The  abbot  replies  in  the  same  strain,  assuring  the  prior  that 
Cicero  is  not  the  main  staple  of  his  repast,  but  only  serves  as  dessert,  and 
sending  him  Origen  and  (in  the  absence  of  Gellius)  a  book  on  Tactics3. 

Lastly,  the  abbot  of  Cluni,  Peter  the  Venerable  (d.  1156), 
writing  to  Master  Peter  of  Poitiers,  thus  urges  the  uselessness  of 
the  study  of  the  ancients : — 

‘  See  now,  without  the  study  of  Plato,  without  the  disputations  of  the 
Academy,  without  the  subtleties  of  Aristotle,  without  the  teaching  of  philo¬ 
sophers,  the  place  and  the  way.  of  happiness  are  discovered... Why,  vainly 
studious,  are  you  reciting  with  the  comedians,  lamenting  with  the  tragedians, 
trifling  with  the  metricians,  deceiving  with  the  poets,  and  deceived  with  the 
philosophers?  ’4 * 

1  The  ms  perished  in  the  flames  during  the  bombardment  of  Strassburg 
in  1870.  The  illustrations  have  since  been  reproduced  (from  earlier  copies) 
in  Straub  and  Keller’s  magnificent  folio  (1879 — 99)  >  see  Plate,  p.  537  supra. 
Cp.  Engelhardt  (1818)  31  f  (with  plate);  Bursian,  i  74;  and  Graf,  Roma,  ii  193k 

2  p.  220  supra. 

3  Maitland,  1 7 53  f-  Text  in  Jaffe,  Bibl.  Rer.  Germ,  i  326. 

4  Migne,  clxxxix  77  d;  Maitland,  44s3.  Cp.,  in  general,  Specht,  Gesch. 

des  UnterrichtsweseiiSy  40 — 57  ;  and  Wattenbach,  Geschichtsquelleny  i6  324-6. 


XXXII.] 


COUNTERACTED. 


597 


A  more  generous  spirit  had  animated  Cassiodorus  when  he 
exhorted  his  monks  to  study  the  liberal  arts  and  to  follow  the 
example  of  Moses,  who  was  ‘learned  in  all  the  wisdom  of  the 
Egyptians’,  and  also  that  of  the  learned  Fathers  of  the  Church1; 
and  the  example  of  the  Fathers  is  pleaded  by  the  Norman  poet, 
Etienne  de  Rouen  (end  of  cent,  xn),  in  the  abstract  of  Quintilian, 
which  he  prepared  for  his  pupils  at  Bee2.  Doubtless  many  of 
those  who  entered  the  monastery  were  drawn  to  it  as  a  place 
of  peace  and  quietness,  a  home  of  learning  and  leisure,  where 
they  could  live  apart  from  the  ‘strife  of  tongues’  and  the  tumult 
of  war.  The  influence  of  such  studious  votaries  of  the  ‘religious’ 
life  must  have  done  much  to  counteract  the  traditional  prejudice 
against  the  pagan  Classics3;  and  intelligent  learners  of  Latin 
could  hardly  fail  to  be  attracted  by  the  perfection  of  form  attained 
by  many  of  the  old  authors  whose  works  they  studied  with  a  view 
to  mastering  the  language  that  had  long  been  traditional  in  the 
teaching  and  in  the  services  of  the  Church,  and  remained  (for 
the  present)  the  only  medium  of  literary  expression  in  Western 
Europe.  Thus  an  interest  in  the  Latin  Classics  had  succeeded  in 
surviving  all  the  fulminations  of  the  Fathers  and  the  censures  of 
the  Church.  But,  in  the  centuries  with  which  we  are  now  con¬ 
cerned,  the  study  of  the  Classics,  wherever  it  actually  prevailed, 
was  regarded  not  as  an  end  in  itself,  but  as  a  means  towards  the 
better  understanding  of  the  Bible,  and  this  is  the  main  difference 
in  the  attitude  assumed  towards  that  study  in  the  Middle  Ages 
a'hd  the  Renaissance. 

While  the  reading  of  pagan  authors  was  discouraged  by  writers 
such  as  Isidore  of  Seville,  and  by  the  founders  of  the  monastic 
Orders,  no  restriction  was  placed  on  the  copying  of  mss.  Jerome 
had  recommended  that  form  of  industry  as  one  of  the  most 
suitable  occupations  of  the  monastic  life4;  and  Ephraem  the 
Syrian  (d.  378)  had  mentioned  the  transcription  of  books,  as 
well  as  the  dyeing  of  parchments,  among  the  manual  labours  of 

1  Div.  Led.  c.  28. 

2  Comparetti,  Virgilio  nel  Medio  Evo ,  i  112,  note  2  ;  Leon  M  ait  re,  Ecoles , 
159;  Fierville,  Introd.  to  Quintil.  I,  p.  xxviiif. 

3  Cp.  Clifford  Allbutt,  Science  and  Medieval  Thought ,  79;  Putnam,  i  122. 

4  Ep.  125,  scribantur  libri. 


I 


598  THE  MONASTIC  ORDERS  AND  THE  CLASSICS.  [CHAP. 


monks1.  The  copying  of  mss  was  in  fact  the  only  manual 

occupation  recognised  in  the  monasteries  founded  by  St  Martin 
of  Tours,  where  it  was  confined  to  younger  members  of  the 
house2.  The  Benedictine  Rule  is  vague,  but  it  assumes  the 

existence  of  a  monastic  library3,  naturally  consisting  of  ecclesi¬ 

astical  books,  while  the  work  of  the  monastic  schools  would  no 
less  naturally  involve  the  acquisition  of  a  number  of  classical 
texts.  Thus  the  celebrated  mss  known  as  the  Vatican  Virgil 
(cent,  ii  or  hi)  and  the  Carolingian  Terence  (cent,  ix)  once 
belonged  to  the  Benedictine  abbey  of  St  Denis,  near  Paris.  The 
devotion  of  the  Benedictine  Order  to  the  cause  of  classical  and 
general  literature  has  been  fully  and  elaborately  justified  and 
exemplified  in  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth  centuries  by 

Mabillon4  and  Ziegelbauer5,  and  has  since  been  more  succinctly 
set  forth  by  Montalembert 6  and  Dantier7.  The  Rule  of  the 
Cluniacs  appoints  a  special  officer  to  take  charge  of  the  books, 
and  provides  for  an  annual  audit  of  the  volumes  assigned  to  the 
several  monks,  and  a  similar  provision  is  to  be  found  in  the 
statutes  of  Oriel  College,  Oxford  (1329)8.  The  Carthusian  Rule 
assumes  that  very  few  of  the  monks  are  incapable  of  being  copyists 
and  punishes  any  monk  who  refuses  to  copy  when  he  is  able  to 
do  so9.  The  Carthusian  abbot  Guigo  (d.  1137)  regards  the  labour 
of  the  copyist  as  an  ‘immortal  work’10.  But  the  members  of 
this  Order  apparently  confined  their  attention  to  ecclesiastical 
literature.  The  Frisian  brothers,  Emo  and  Addo,  were  wider  in 

1  Wattenbach,  Schriftwesen  im  MA,  35 12 ;  Lecoy  de  la  Marche,  Les 
MSS,  89. 

2  Sulp.  Severus,  Vita  Martini ,  c.  7. 

3  c.  48. 

4  Traite  des  etudes  monastiques  (1691),  and  Reflexions  (1693). 

5  Observations  Literariae  O.S.B.  four  folio  volumes  (Augsburg,  1784). 
Cp.  C.  Acheri’s  (i.e.  Father  Cahier’s)  12  Essais  in  Annates  de  philosophic 
chretienne ,  xvii — xviii,  Oct.  1838-9,  esp.  Essais  3-7  bibliotheques ,  8  calligraphic , 
9 — 10  miniatures ,  11 — 12  luxe  bibliographique  au  moyen-dge. 

6  Monks  of  the  West ,  Bk  xviii  c.  41. 

7  Les  monasteres  benedictins  d'ltalie ,  2  vols.  (1866),  on  Monte  Cassino, 
Bobbio,  etc. 

8  J.  W.  Clark,  Care  of  Books,  67,  133.  Cp.  Gasquet’s  Essays,  20,  28. 

9  Lecoy  de  la  Marche,  90. 

10  Migne,  cliii  883. 


XXXII.] 


THE  MONASTIC  SCRIPTORIUM. 


599 


their  interests.  As  students  at  Paris,  Orleans  and  Oxford,  they 
divided  the  night  between  them,  and  spent  it  in  copying  all  the 
texts  they  could  find,  with  the  explanations  given  them  by  their 
lecturers ;  and,  as  head  of  the  Premonstratensian  abbey  of 
Wittewierum  in  Groningen  (d.  1237),  Emo  afterwards  instructed 
nuns  as  well  as  monks  in  the  art  of  transcribing  mss1.  At  Cluni 
all  the  requirements  of  the  copyist  were  provided  by  the  armarius 
or  librarian2,  and  the  rule  of  silence  was  strictly  enjoined.  If  the 
copyist  wanted  a  book,  he  had  to  stretch  out  his  hands  and  make 
a  movement  as  of  turning  over  leaves.  To  distinguish  different 
kinds  of  books,  various  further  signs  were  in  use.  If  he  required 
a  Psalter,  he  placed  his  hands  over  his  head,  in  allusion  to  the 
royal  crown  of  David ;  if  a  pagan  book,  he  scratched  his  ear  after 
the  manner  of  a  dog3.  Sometimes,  for  lack  of  parchment,  a 
copyist  effaces  a  pagan  text  to  make  room  for  a  Christian  work ; 
but  the  converse  occasionally  happens,  and  a  case  is  known  in 
which  the  Epistles  of  St  Paul  have  been  superseded  by  the  books 
of  the  Iliad4.  Occasionally,  the  copyist  protests  against  or  even 
alters  a  text  which,  on  moral  grounds,  he  disapproves5;  and  the 
heathen  incantations,  copied  in  a  ms  of  Apuleius  de  herbis  in  a 
hand  of  the  ninth  century,  are  marked  for  omission  in  a  hand  of 
the  fifteenth6 7. 

The  scene  of  the  copyist’s  industry  was  the  scriptorium1. 
This  might  either  be  a  large  room  where  twelve 
copyists  could  be  at  work  at  once,  or  a  small  cell  scriptorium 
for  a  single  transcriber.  In  the  old  plan  of  the 
monastery  at  St  Gallen,  the  scriptorium  is  beside  the  church  and 
below  the  library8;  Under  Alcuin,  St  Martin’s  at  Tours  became 

1  Wattenbach,  l.c.,  374s;  cp.  Montalembert,  v  136!  (1896). 

2  ib.  37  22. 

3  Martene,  De  Antiq.  Monach.  Ritibus ,  lib.  v,  c.  18  §  4,  pro  signo  libri 
saecularis,  praemisso  generali  signo  libri,  adde  ut  aurem  tangat  cum  digito, 
sicut  canis  cum  pede  pruriens  solet. 

4  Comparetti,  Virgilio,  i  114. 

5  Comparetti,  i  115;  Friedlander’s  Martial,  i  p.  73  b 

6  Haase,  De  Med.  Aevi  Stud.  Philol.  19. 

7  Ducange,  s.v.  Scriptores ;  Hardy,  Descriptive  Catalogue,  Pref.  to  vol.  iii 
{Rolls  Series)',  cp.  Gasquet’s  Essays,  41  f. 

8  N.  of  the  chancel ;  Pertz,  Mon.  ii  95  ;  Wattenbach,  3702. 


6oo 


TOURS.  AACHEN.  FULDA. 


[CHAP. 


famous  for  a  time  as  a  school  of  copyists1,  and  one  of  his  epigrams 
had  the  scriptorium  for  its  theme,  an  epigram  borrowed  in  part  by 


Simon,  abbot  of  St  Albans, 

SEATED  AT  HIS  BOOK-CHEST. 

British  Museum,  Cotton  MS,  Claudius  E4. 

(From  J.  W.  Clark,  Care  of  Books ,  ■293.) 

1  p.  457  supra.  Alcuin’s  direct  share  in  the  formation  of  the  script,  which 
became  characteristic  of  Tours,  has,  however,  been  disputed  by  Prof.  K. 
Menzel  of  Bonn  in  his  contribution  to  the  fine  folio  volume  entitled  Die 
Trierer  Ada-Handschrift  (Leipzig,  1889),  3 — 5.  Prof.  Menzel  there  assigns 
the  credit  to  Alcuin’s  successors,  (1)  Fridugis  of  York  (804-34),  and 
(2)  Adelard  (834-45),  under  the  former  of  whom  Adalbaldus  was  active  as  a 
skilful  copyist  (Wattenbach,  Geschichtsquellen,  i6  160).  He  also  points  out 
that  the  semi-uncial  variety  of  that  script  ( facsimile  in  E.  M.  Thompson’s 
Palaeography ,  234)  hardly  survived  the  year  900,  while  the  Caroline  minuscules 
lived  on  ( ib .  235).  The  ‘Ada  ms’  (a  celebrated  codex  aureus  of  the  Latin 
Gospels,  prepared  by  command  of  Charles  the  Great,  and  presented  to  the 
abbey  of  St  Maximin,  at  Trier,  by  the  emperor’s  sister  Ada,  d.  817?  or  823?) 
is  written  in  exceedingly  beautiful  minuscules  by  two  scribes,  (A)  c.  790-9,  and 
(B)  c.  800-20.  The  external  and  internal  splendour  of  the  MS  suggests  that  it 
was  probably  prepared  in  the  imperial  city  of  Aachen  itself ;  and  the  date  of 
its  completion  is  presumably  after  the  death  of  Alcuin  (804).  On  the  other 
hand,  the  ordinary  script  of  Alcuin’s  own  time  at  Tours  may  be  regarded  as 
well  represented  by  a  mixed  MS  of  certain  works  of  Alcuin  and  Bede,  now  at 
Cologne  (no.  cvi ;  facsimile  in  Arndt’s  Schrifttafeln ,  37 — 40). 


XXXII.]  ST  ALBANS.  GLOUCESTER.  DURHAM. 


601 


Alcuin’s  pupil,  Rabanus  Maurus,  for  the  scriptorium  at  Fulda1. 
In  the  Benedictine  monasteries  in  general,  it  became  customary 
to  institute,  first  the  library,  then  the  scriptorium ,  and  finally  the 
school.  At  St  Albans,  the  scriptorium  founded  by  abbot  Paul 
(1077-93)  was  above  the  chapter-house,  while  the  mss  collected  a 
century  later  by  abbot  Simon  (1167-83)  were  kept  ‘in  the  painted 
aumbry  in  the  church’2.  In  many  cases  the  scriptorium  was 
considerately  placed  in  the  immediate  neighbourhood  of  the 
calefactory.  Instead  of  a  large  room,  there  might  be  a  number 
of  small  scriptoria  ranged  round  a  cloister,  each  of  them  opening 
on  to  the  cloister-walk  and  lighted  by  a  single  window  on  the 
opposite  side,  like  the  ‘carrels’  of  St  Peter’s  abbey,  now  forming 
part  of  Gloucester  cathedral.  ‘Over  against  the  carrells’  (in  the 
great  Benedictine  House  at  Durham)  ‘did  stande  certaine  great 
almeries  of  waynscott  all  full  of  bookes,  wherein  did  lye  as  well 
the  old  auncyent  written  Doctors  of  the  Church  as  other  prophane 
authors  with  dy verse  other  holie  men’s  wourks’3.  Nicholas,  the 
secretary  of  Bernard  of  Clairvaux,  describes  his  scriptoriolum  (with 
its  door  open  to  the  apartment  of  the  novices,  and  with  the  cloister 
to  the  right  and  the  infirmary  and  place  of  exercise  to  the  left)  as 
‘a  place  to  be  desired,  and  pleasant  to  look  upon’;  as  ‘comfortable 
for  retirement’,  and  ‘fitted  with  choice  and  divine  books’4.  The 
task  of  the  copyist  was  often  carried  on  in  the  open  cloister5. 
No  ms  was  copied  in  the  monk’s  own  cell,  and,  for  fear  of 
accidents,  candle-light  was  (in  general)  not  allowed;  but  we  know 
of  one  at  least  who  (in  his  own  pathetic  words)  ‘  Dum  scripsit, 
friguit,  et  quod  cum  lumine  solis  Scribere  non  potuit,  perfecit 
lumine  noctis’6 7.  The  scribe  was  expected  to  copy  exactly  what 
he  saw  before  him,  even  when  it  was  clearly  wrong :  and  his  work 
was  afterwards  revised  by  the  corrector \ 

The  extreme  elaboration  with  which  the  copyists  of  Cluni 

1  Browerus,  Antiquitates  Fuldenses  (1612),  p.  46,  and  p.  466  supra. 

2  Gesta  Abbatum,  i  184,  192  (Gasquet’s  Essays,  6). 

3  Rites  of  Durham  p.  70  (J.  W.  Clark,  Care  of  Books,  90). 

4  Ep*  35>  Migne,  cxcvi  1626  f;  Maitland,  40 43  f. 

5  Gasquet,  43  f;  J.  W.  Clark,  80  f. 

6  Pez,  Thesaurus ,  i  p.  xx. 

7  Wattenbach,  359s f  (cp.  Bursian,  i  31  f). 


602 


SURVIVAL  OF  THE  LATIN  CLASSICS  [CHAP. 


executed  their  work  was  criticised  by  the  Cistercians,  who,  how¬ 
ever,  ended  by  following  their  example,  even  exempting  their 
copyists  from  all  labour  in  the  fields  except  at  the  time  of  harvest  \ 
Among  the  most  famous  schools  of  copyists  were  those  of  Tours, 
Orleans,  Metz,  Rheims,  Priim  and  St  Gallen.  But  in  1297  at 
St  Gallen,  and  in  1291  at  Murbach  in  the  upper  Vosges,  few 
(if  any)  of  the  monks  were  competent  copyists,  and  similarly  at 
Corbie  (near  Amiens)  the  monks  ceased  to  act  as  copyists  them¬ 
selves  at  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century1 2.  The  Lucretius, 
which  was  there  c.  1200,  has  since  been  lost.  Many  of  the  other 
mss  have,  however,  survived,  notably  a  ms  of  Pliny  the  elder 
(cent,  ix)  and  two  of  the  Thebais  of  Statius  (cent,  ix,  x)3;  and 
(although  the  copyist  seldom  signed  his  work)  the  names  of 
27  librarians,  copyists  or  correctors  of  mss  at  Corbie  are  still 
known4.  At  Cluni,  the  mss  included  Livy,  Sallust,  Suetonius, 
Trogus  Pompeius  (i.e.  Justin),  Seneca,  ‘Aristotle’,  Cicero,  Ovid, 
Virgil,  Horace,  Juvenal,  Statius,  Lucan,  Terence,  Claudian,  Aesop, 
Pliny  the  elder,  Festus,  Priscian  (besides  the  chief  mediaeval 
authors),  the  catalogues  of  centuries  xn  and  xm  containing  near¬ 
ly  t 000  volumes5.  The  monks  of  centuries  x,  xi  and  xii  are 
credited  with  having  been  keener  copyists  than  their  successors ; 
but  the  love  of  learning,  which  had  received  its  first  impulse  from 
Cassiodorus,  never  entirely  died  out.  It  left  its  results  in  the  mss 
of  Monte  Cassino  and  Bobbio  ;  of  Corbie  and  Cluni ;  of  Moissac 
on  the  upper  Garonne,  and  Tours6  and  Fleury  on  the  Loire7; 


1  Wattenbach,  37  22. 

2  37 7*2 ;  cp.  Gasquet’s  Essays,  52. 

3  Facsimiles  in  Chatelain,  Pal.  des  Cl.  Lat.,  PI.  140  f,  161. 

4  Delisle,  Bibl.  de  Corbie  (i860),  Mem.  de  F  A  cad.  des  Inscr.  xxiv  266 — 342 
—  Bibl.  de  Vecole  des  chartes ,  xxxi  393 — 439,  498—515;  Cabinet  des  MSS, 
ii  427. 

5  Found  by  Mabillon  and  Martene;  Delisle,  Cabinet  des  MSS,  ii  458 — 87; 
Inventaire  (1884),  337-79;  Lecoy  de  la  Marche,  92  ;  cp.  E.  Sackur,  Die 
Cluniacenser  (Halle,  1892-4). 

6  e.g.  the  Berne  Virgil,  and  the  Leyden  Nonius  Marcellus. 

7  e.g.  the  Berne  Horace  and  Statius,  the  Paris  Lucan,  the  Vatican  Fasti  of 
Ovid.  Cp.  also  Traube,  S.  Ber.  Bayr.  Akad.  1891,  400-2;  Delisle,  Cab.  des 
MSS,  ii  364-6,  and  Notices  et  Extraits,  xxxi  (1)  357 — 439;  Cuissard-Gaucheron, 
MSS... d' Orleans,  Fonds  de  Flemy  (Orleans,  1855). 


XXXII.] 


PARTLY  DUE  TO  LOCAL  CAUSES. 


603 


of  St  Gallen  and  Reichenau ;  of  Lorsch,  Hersfeld1  and  Fulda2. 
The  work  accomplished  at  Monte  Cassino  under  Desiderius  has 
been  already  mentioned3.  Among  other  Italian  libraries  were 
those  at  Novalesa,  near  Mont  Cenis,  which  contained  more  than 
6000  volumes  in  906,  when  the  monks  removed  them  to  Turin 
for  fear  of  the  Saracens4;  and  at  Pomposa,  near  Ravenna,  including 
copies  of  Seneca  and  Pliny5 6.  In  France  the  monastery  of  Moissac 
alone  preserved  a  copy  of  ‘Lactan  tius’  De  Mortibus  Persecutorum* ; 
that  of  Murbach,  the  only  ms  of  Velleius  Paterculus ;  that  of 
Fleury,  near  Orleans,  the  longer  version  of  the  Commentary  on 
Virgil  by  Servius7;  Bobbio  once  possessed  the  only  ms  of 
Terentianus  Maurus;  and  similarly  in  many  other  cases8.  Thus 
it  is  that  the  monasteries  of  the  Middle  Ages  may  justly  be 
regarded  not  only  as  ‘repositories  of  the  learning  that  then  was’, 
but  also  as  ‘well-springs  of  the  learning  which  was  to  be’9 10.  While 
the  records  of  other  literatures  have  perished,  we  are  indebted  to 
the  monks  for  the  fact  that 

‘  Classic  lore  glides  on, 

By  these  Religious  saved  for  all  posterity’30. 

The  survival  of  certain  of  the  Latin  Classics  was  due  to  their 
local  interest.  Catullus  survived  in  his  birthplace,  Verona  (possibly 
owing  to  Pacificus,  the  archdeacon  of  that  city,  who,  before  846, 
presented  218  mss  to  the  local  College  of  Canons11)  ;  Caesar’s 

1  Cp.  Holder- Egger’s  Lambert  (1894),  p.  xiif. 

2  J-  Gegenbaur  (Fulda,  1871-4,  1878).  On  all  the  monasteries  in  this 
line,  see  Index  to  Wattenbach,  Geschichtsquellen ,  and  to  Specht,  Unterrichts- 
wesen. 

3  p.  500  supra. 

4  Muratori,  Script.  Rer.  Ital.  11  ii  731;  Tiraboschi,  iii  194;  Balzani’s 
Chroniclers ,  183!;  Cipolla,  Mon.  Novaliciensia  (Rome,  1898). 

5  Montfaucon,  Diar.  Ital.  c.  6. 

6  Now  Par.  Colbert.  1297. 

7  Now  Par.  7929. 

8  Cp.  Vadianus  ap.  Ziegelbauer,  Obs.  Lit.  O.S.B. ,  ii  520.  For  Rutilius 
Namatianus  we  depend  entirely  on  a  Vienna  transcript  of  a  unique  ms  formerly 
at  Bobbio. 

9  Maitland’s  Dark  Ages ,  Pref. 

10  Wordsworth,  Eccl.  Sonnets ,  xxv. 

11  Muratori,  Ant.  Ital.  iii  838;  Tiraboschi,  iii  264. 


604  the  CLASSICS  IN  FRANCE,  GERMANY,  ITALY,  [CHAP. 


Gallic  War ,  in  France ;  the  Germania  and  the  early  books  of 
the  Annals  of  Tacitus,  with  all  that  remains  of  Ammianus 
Marcellinus1,  in  Germany;  and  Frontinus,  On  Aqueducts,  at 
Monte  Cassino,  S.E.  of  the  Roman  Campagna,  where  this  unique 
ms  is  still  preserved.  The  interests  of  education  prompted  the 
preservation  of  authors  on  Grammar,  with  Terence  and  Virgil, 
and  (in  a  less  degree)  Lucan  and  Statius,  Persius  and  Juvenal. 
Sallust,  Livy  and  Suetonius  were  retained  as  models  for  historical, 
Cicero’s  Speeches  for  rhetorical,  and  Ovid  for  poetical  composition. 
The  ethical  interest  prolonged  the  existence  of  the  philosophical 
writings  of  Cicero  and  Seneca,  and  of  the  historical  anecdotes 
of  Valerius  Maximus2.  Germany  seems  to  have  been  mainly 
interested  in  subject-matter;  France,  in  style  and  form.  Catullus 
was  preserved  in  France,  as  well  as  in  Italy;  Horace,  chiefly 
in  France ;  Propertius,  probably  in  France  alone,  being  first 
mentioned  by  Richard  de  Fournival,  chancellor  of  Amiens  (xm)3; 
the  two  earliest  notices  of  Tibullus  come  from  France4,  and  his 
allusions  to  the  local  rivers  may  have  added  to  his  popularity  in 
that  country5.  The  Cynegetica  of  Nemesianus  is  mentioned  by 
Hincmar  of  Rheims  alone,  as  a  book  which  he  had  studied  as  a 
boy  (d.  882).  Cicero’s  Speeches  survived  at  Cluni,  Langres  and 
Liege,  and  the  Ciceronian  mss  at  Hirschau  were  brought  from 
France6.  The  first  to  translate  any  of  the  Speeches  was  an  Italian, 
Brunetto  Latini  (d.  1294);  the  Brutus  survived  solely  in  Italy; 
the  De  Oratore  and  Orator,  in  Italy  and  France.  As  an  authority 
on  matters  of  diction,  the  grammarian  Festus  was  known  in 
France,  and  was  also  preserved  in  Italy7,  Paulus  Diaconus, 
generally  recognised  as  the  author  of  the  extant  abridgement, 
having  lived  in  both  of  these  lands.  The  historians  (with  the 

1  Codex  Fuldensis  (cent,  x)  now  in  Vatican. 

2  On  Valerius  cp.  Wibald  of  Corvey  (0.  1150)  in  Bibl.  Ker.  Germ,  i  280 
Jaffe. 

3  Propercii  Aurelii  Nautae  monobiblos  (cp.  Teuffel,  §  246,  r),  Manitius  in 
Rhein.  Mus.  xlvii,  Suppl.  p.  31.  List  of  Richard’s  books  in  Delisle,  Cab.  des 
MSS ,  ii  514. 

4  Norden,  Kunstprosa ,  718  n.  2. 

8  i  7,  1  — 12. 

6  Bibl.  Rer.  Germ,  i  327. 

7  Cp.  Manitius,  in  Philol.  xlix  384. 


XXXII.]  ENGLAND.  RICHARD  OF  BURY. 


605 


exception  of  the  author  of  the  Gallic  War )  were  diligently  read 
and  copied  in  Germany1;  and  the  elder  Pliny  in  Germany  and 
England. 

Richard  of  Bury  looks  back  with  regret  on  the  ages  when  the 
monks  used  to  copy  mss  ‘between  the  hours  of  prayer’,  giving  all 
the  time  they  could  to  the  making  of  books,  and  contrasts  the 
industry  of  the  past  with  the  idleness  of  his  own  day  (1345) 2. 
He  also  presents  us  with  a  vivid  picture  of  his  own  eagerness  in 
collecting  mss  with  the  aid  of  the  stationarii  and  librarii  of 
France,  Germany  and  Italy.  For  some  of  his  books  he  sends 
to  Rome ;  he  also  dwells  with  rapture  on  his  visits  to  Paris, 
‘the  paradise  of  the  world’,  with  its  delightful  libraries,  its  mss 
of  Aristotle  and  Plotinus,  St  Paul  and  Dionysius,  and  ‘all  the 
works  in  which  the  Latin  Muse  reproduces  the  lore  of  Greece’3. 
He  adds  that,  in  his  own  manors  in  England,  he  always  employed 
a  large  number  of  copyists4,  scribes  and  correctors,  besides 
binders  and  illuminators5;  and  he  pays  an  eloquent  and  well- 
known  tribute  to  his  beloved  books6.  All  the  rooms  in  his  house 
are  said  to  have  been  crowded  with  them.  They  are  even  said  to 
have  encroached  on  his  bedroom  in  such  numbers  that  he  could 
not  get  to  bed  without  stepping  over  them.  His  library  has 
unfortunately  been  lost,  and  even  its  catalogue  has  vanished7. 

From  the  Monasteries  the  copying  of  mss  passed  to  the 
Universities.  During  the  70  years  preceding  the  Universitie 
date  of  the  Philobiblon ,  authorised  copyists  for 
the  production  of  text-books  were  licensed  and  controlled  by  the 
university  of  Paris  (1275),  numbering  24  in  1292  and  29  in  13238. 
The  library  of  the  Sorbonne  was  instituted  in  1289 ;  its  catalogue 
(which  is  still  extant)  numbers  1017  titles,  and  by  the  statutes 

1  Manitius  in  Rhein.  Mus.  l.c.,  with  summary  in  Norden,  691  f. 

2  Philobiblon  c.  5. 

3  c.  8,  §§  126-8. 

4  antiquarii  (§  143  =  transcriptores  veterum ,  §  207). 

5  §  143-  6  c.  1  §§  26—29. 

7  H.  Morley’s  Eng.  Writers,  iv  56;  Putnam,  i  168;  p.  580  supra. 

8  Paul  Lacroix,  quoted  by  Lecoy  de  la  Marche,  p.  1 10  f.  On  ‘  Books  in 
the  early  Universities’,  see  Schmid,  Gesch.  d.  Erziehung,  11  i  490-5,  and 

Putnam,  i  178—224. 


6o6 


RISE  OF  MEDIAEVAL  UNIVERSITIES.  [CHAP. 


of  1321  one  copy  of  every  work  in  its  best  form  was  added  to  the 
collection1.  But,  at  least  half  a  century  before  Paris  became 
famous  as  the  home  of  Scholasticism  ( c .  1100)  or  Bologna  as  a 
school  of  Law  ( c .  1113),  and  more  than  a  century  before  Oxford 
began  to  flourish,  possibly  owing  to  the  withdrawal  of  certain 
English  students  from  Paris  (1167),  Salerno  had  been  known 
throughout  Europe  as  a  school  of  Medicine  (c.  1050),  and  Latin 
translations  of  Arabic  renderings  of  the  great  Greek  physicians 
began  to  be  in  use  in  that  ‘city  of  Hippocrates’  before  the  end  of 
the  eleventh  century2.  Montpellier  is  first  noticed  as  a  school 
of  Medicine  in  1137,  and  the  text-books  there  used  are  chiefly 
those  of  the  Greek  Galen,  as  translated  from  Arabic  into  Latin  in 
the  twelfth  century,  mainly  by  Gerard  of  Cremona3.  We  hear  of 
students  migrating  from  Oxford  to  Cambridge  in  1209,  and  from 
Bologna  to  Padua  in  1222,  and  we  find  Salamanca  and  Toulouse 
coming  into  being  about  the  same  date,  while  the  only  important 
universities  founded  between  that  time  and  the  middle  of  the 
fourteenth  century  are  those  of  Pisa  (1343),  Florence  (1349),  and 
Prague  (1347-8),  this  last  being  the  earliest  of  German  universities. 
The  traditions  of  study,  which  had  been  in  a  measure  maintained 
by  the  Monasteries  down  to  about  the  end  of  the  twelfth  century, 
passed  in  part  to  the  Dominican  and  Franciscan  Orders  in  the 
thirteenth,  while,  before  the  close  of  the  Middle  Ages,  they  also 
found  a  home  in  Universities  such  as  those  which  have  here  been 
briefly  mentioned. 

A  few  of  the  indications  of  the  relative  importance  attached  to 
the  principal  Latin  authors  in  the  Middle  Ages  may  here  be 
noticed4,  with  some  mention  of  the  leading  mediaeval  mss  still 
extant,  and  of  the  mediaeval  libraries  where  they  were  formerly 

1  A.  Franklin,  Les  Anciennes  Bibl.  de  Paris  (1867),  La  Sorbonne,  221 — 318; 
cp.  Putnam,  i  166. 

2  Rashdall,  i  77  f.  3  ib.  ii  [15,  780. 

4  Cp.  Manitius  in  Philologus ,  xlvii — lii,  and  Suppl.  vii,  1899  (f°r  mediaeval 
quotations),  and  Rhein.  Mus.  xlvii,  Suppl.  pp.  152  (for  evidence  from 
mediaeval  catalogues),  with  literature  in  Hubner,  Bibliographies  §§  34,  38  ;  also 

A.  Graf,  Roma  nella  Memoria . . .del  Medio  Evo  (1883),  ii  153 — 367;  and  the 
very  brief  sketches  in  G.  Meier’s  Sieben  Freien  Kiinste  (Einsiedeln,  1886), 
i  17 — 21,  and  Bursian’s  Cl.  Philol.  in  Deutschland ,  i  27  f.  . 


XXXII.] 


PLAUTUS.  TERENCE. 


607 


preserved1.  It  will  thus  be  seen  how  large  a  portion  of  the  Latin 
Classics  owes  its  present  existence  to  the  industry  of  copyists 
prior  to  the  age  of  the  Renaissance.  Plautus  was  little  read2; 
he  is  only  quoted  second-hand  by  Rabanus  Maurus, 
who  clearly  derives  his  knowledge  from  Priscian  Terence 
and  Isidore;  but  many  isolated  lines  are  cited  in 
the  Glossariutn  Osberni3 ,  a  work  of  English  origin.  In  the 
mediaeval  catalogues,  he  is  found  at  Bury4  and  at  Bamberg5 6  only, 
but  he  is  mentioned  by  Ratherius,  bishop  of  Verona  (965)®,  and 
Philip  de  Harveng  (cent,  xii)7,  both  of  whom  once  belonged  to 
the  diocese  of  Cambrai.  The  text  of  Plautus  now  depends  (1)  on 
the  Ambrosian  palimpsest  in  Milan  (cent,  iv — v),  containing  the 
Trinummus  and  Miles  G/oriosus  and  about  half  of  twelve  other 
plays,  which  almost  certainly  came  from  Bobbio8,  and  (2)  on  five 
mss  of  the  ‘Palatine’  recension,  viz.  one  at  Heidelberg9,  two  in 
the  Vatican,  one  in  the  British  Museum  (xi),  and  a  second 
Ambrosian  ms  (xii).  Until  1428,  only  the  first  eight  of  the 
twenty  extant  plays  were  really  known.  Terence  was  far  more 
familiar.  A  line  from  his  plays  was  even  quoted  in  St  Peter’s  by 
Liberius,  bishop  of  Rome  (352-66),  in  an  exhortation  addressed  to 
the  sister  of  Ambrose  on  her  reception  as  a  nun  in  the  presence 
of  her  brother10.  He  was  closely  imitated  by  Hroswitha,  and  not 


1  Nearly  all  the  mss  here  mentioned  are  included  in  Chatelain’s  Paleographie 
des  Classiques  Latins ,  containing  more  than  300  facsimiles ,  with  descriptive 
letterpress  (1884 — 1900).  Further  details  as  to  the  ‘class-marks’  etc.  of  mss 
in  modern  libraries  may  be  found  in  Teuffel  or  Schanz,  and  the  current 
critical  editions. 

2  Peiper,  Archiv  f  Lit.  Cesch.  v  495;  Rhein.  A/us.  xxxii  516;  Manitius, 
Philol.  Suppl.  vii  758  f. 

3  A  column  and  a  half  of  references  in  Index  to  Mai,  Auctores ,  viii.  The 
work  was  ascribed  by  Leland  to  Osbern,  a  monk  of  Gloucester  ( c .  1150); 
Rhein.  A/us.  xxix  (1874)  179  f. 

4  M.  R.  James,  Bibl.  Buriensis ,  p.  27. 

8  Manitius,  Rhein.  A/us.  xlviii  10 1. 

6  Migne,  cxxxvi  752,  Catullum  nunquam  antea  lectum,  Plautum  iam  olim 
lego  [nec]lectum. 

7  Migne,  cciii  872  ( Captivi ),  1008  (Asinaria). 

8  p.  441  supra. 

9  Complete  facsimile  (Leyden;  1900). 

10  Hautontim.  373;  Ambrose  in  Migne,  xvi  225  c. 


6o8 


CATULLUS. 


[CHAP. 


unfrequently  cited  by  others1;  but,  although  his  metres  had  been 
expounded  by  Priscian,  he  was  regarded  as  a  prose-author  not 
only  by  the  learned  abbess  of  Gandersheim,  but  also  by  the  well- 
informed  schoolmaster  of  Bamberg,  Hugo  of  Trimberg2.  The 
text  depends  on  the  Bembine  ms  in  the  Vatican  (iv — v),  so  called 
because  it  belonged  to  Cardinal  Bembo’s  father,  who  describes  it 
as  a  codex  mihi  carior  auro 3.  The  later  mss  (ix)  belong  to  the 
inferior  recension  by  Calliopius  (m — iv). 

Verona’s  poet  Catullus,  who  had  been  imitated  in  the  Roman 
Age4,  and  partially  known  to  Ausonius,  Paulinus 

Catullus  °  .  ...  . 

and  Apolhnans  Sidomus  in  Gaul,  and  to  Corippus 
in  Africa5,  is  quoted  by  Isidore  of  Seville  in  the  seventh  century, 
but  is  not  even  named  again  until  the  time  of  Ratherius,  bishop 
of  Verona  (965)6.  The  ms  at  Verona,  lost  for  a  time  but  recovered 
shortly  before  1323,  was  known  to  Petrarch  (1347)  and  Coluccio 
Salutato  (1374),  but  had  vanished  again  before  Traversari’s  visit 
(July  1433)7.  It  is  (directly  or  indirectly)  the  source  of  all  the 
extant  mss8,  the  best  of  them  being  the  Paris  ms  from  Saint- 
Germain-des-Pres,  copied  at  Verona  in  13759,  the  Oxford  ms  from 
the  collection  of  the  Venetian  Jesuit  Ganonici  (1817),  copied 
about  1400,  and  the  codex  Datanus  in  Berlin  (1463).  The 
Epithalcunium  alone  is  included  in  a  Paris  Anthology  of 
century  ix. 

* 

Lucretius,  who,  in  the  Roman  Age,  had  been  familiar  to 


1  Manitius,  Philol.  lii  546-53 ;  Cloetta,  Beitrage ,  i ;  Komodie  u.  Tragodie 
im  MA,  2  f  (Halle,  1890);  Magnin,  Bibl.  de  Vecole  des  chartes,  i  524-31. 
John  of  Salisbury,  Pol.  vii  9,  calls  him  Comicus  qui  prae  ceteris  placet',  but  the 
only  plays  he  quotes  are  the  Andria  and  Eunuchns. 

2  Registrum  Multorum  Auctorum  (1280),  ed.  Hiirner,  Ein  Quellenbuch  zur 
Lat.  Literaturgeschichte  des  MAs ,  Vienna  Akad.  Sitzungsber.  1888,  (Sallust, 
Cicero,  Terence)  ‘  non  in  numero  ponuntur  metricorum  ’  (1.  282). 

3  Complete  facsunile  (Leyden,  1903). 

4  Bursian’s  Jahresb.  li  239. 

5  Philol.  xlviii  760;  cp.  Bahrens,  ii  65. 

6  p.  607  supra ,  n.  6;  R.  Ellis,  Prol.  viif. 

7  Hodoeporicon,  p.  34;  Voigt,  Humanismus ,  i  207,  439,  ii  384s;  Bahrens, 
i  pp.  v — xi ;  R.  Ellis,  Prol.  x — xii. 

8  Disputed  by  L.  Schwabe  (1886)  and  B.  Schmidt  (1887). 

9  Complete  facsimile  (Paris,  Leroux,  1890). 


XXXII.] 


LUCRETIUS. 


609 


Arnobius,  Lactantius1  and  Jerome2,  and  had  been  occasionally 
imitated  by  Commodianus  and  frequently  quoted 

Lucretius 

by  Isidore,  was  little  read  in  the  Middle  Ages3. 

But  he  is  mentioned  by  Ratherius,  and,  through  the  medium  of 
the  grammarians,  he  became  known  to  Bede,  one  of  whose 
quotations  enabled  Lachmann  to  emend  the  poet’s  text  (vi  868). 
A  few  consecutive  lines  are  quoted  by  Ermenrich  of  Ellwangen4. 
Some  at  least  of  the  quotations  in  Rabanus  Maurus  are  un¬ 
doubtedly  derived  (as  in  the  case  of  Plautus)  from  Priscian  and 
Isidore.  If  any  of  them  are  first-hand,  they  may  have  been  taken 
from  the  ninth  century  ms  now  at  Leyden  (A),  which  was  formerly 
in  the  library  of  St  Martin’s  church  at  Mainz,  the  see  of  Rabanus. 
The  tenth  century  ms  at  Leyden  (B)  was  once  in  the  abbey  of 
St  Bertin,  near  St  Omer  and  not  far  from  Corbie,  and  mediaeval 
catalogues  show  that  Lucretius  was  not  unknown  at  Corbie  itself, 
as  well  as  at  Murbach  and  Bobbio.  Our  present  authorities, 
A  and  B,  are  derived  from  a  lost  original  of  century  iv — v,  con¬ 
sisting  of  302  pages  written  in  thin  capitals,  which  was  formerly  in 
some  part  of  Frankland5.  Marbod,  bishop  of  Rennes  (d.  1123), 
who  opposed  the  Epicureanism  of  his  day,  has  an  obvious  echo  of 
Lucretius  in  the  lines, 

‘  Hanc  (jv.  mortem)  indoctus  homo  summum  putat  esse  malorum, 
Omnia  cum  vita  tollentur  commoda  vitae’6. 

A  single  line  of  Lucretius7  is  inaccurately  quoted  in  works  bearing 
the  names  of  Wilhelm  of  Hirschau8  (d.  1091)  and  Honorius  of 
Autun9  (c.  1120),  both  of  which  are  now  generally  ascribed  to  William 

1  Philippe,  Rev.  de  V Hist,  des  Religions ,  1896,  16 — 36. 

2  Adv.  Rtif.  iii  c.  29. 

3  Manitius,  in  Philol.  Iii  536-8.  Jourdain,  Recherches ,  21,  seems  hardly 
justified  in  saying  that  d  toutes  les  epoques  du  moyen  dge  on  a  lu...le  pohne  de 
Lucrhe. 

4  ed.  Dummler,  p.  20  (Lucr.  i  150-8). 

5  Lachmann,  Comm.  init. 

6  Liber  decern  Capitnlorum,  ix;  Lucr.  iii  898 — 901,  and  iii  2,  ‘commoda 
vitae  ’. 

7  ii  888,  ex  insensilibus  ne  credas  sensile  gigni. 

8  Philosophicae  Institutiones,  ip.  24. 

9  De  Philos.  Mundi,  i  c.  21,  Migne,  clxxii  54. 


S. 


39 


6  io 


LUCRETIUS. 


[CHAP. 


of  Conches1.  The  same  line  is  quoted  by  Giraldus  Cambrensis2 
(d.  1222);  but,  with  William  and  Giraldus  alike,  the  ultimate 
authority  is  Priscian  (iv  27),  as  is  proved  by  their  agreeing  with 
Priscian  in  making  the  last  word  of  the  line  nasci  instead  of  gigni 3. 
Giraldus  actually  quotes  it  as  a  line  of  Plautus,  thus  revealing  his 
ignorance  of  the  text  of  Plautus  and  Lucretius,  and  of  the  metres 
of  both.  Richard  of  Bury4  mentions  Lucretius  (with  Homer  and 
Theocritus)  as  a  poet  imitated  by  Virgil.  This  remark  is  described 
by  Manitius5  as  a  proof  of  very  wide  reading,  but  Richard  may 
easily  have  found  his  authority  (for  Virgil’s  debt  to  Lucretius)  in 
one  of  his  favourite  authors,  Gellius6;  or  (for  the  poet’s  debt  to 
Homer  and  Theocritus,  as  well  as  Lucretius)  in  Macrobius7,  whom 
he  mentions  in  the  very  next  section8. 

Of  all  the  poets  by  far  the  most  popular  in  the  Middle  Ages 

Virgil  was  The  allegorical  interpretation  of  the 

Aeneid ,  as  an  image  of  human  life,  as  a  story  of 
the  triumph  of  wisdom  and  virtue  over  folly  and  passion,,  first  put 
forward  by  Fulgentius9,  was  accepted  by  Bernard  Silvester  and  his 
contemporary  John  of  Salisbury10,  as  well  as  by  Dante,  and  by  scholars 
in  the  Renaissance,  such  as  Alberti  and  Landini.  Virgil  was  of 
course  the  constant  model  of  the  mediaeval  epics.  His  general 
popularity  in  the  Christian  community  was  partly  due  to  his 
Fourth  Eclogue ,  which  had  been  regarded  by  Lactantius,  Eusebius, 
St  Augustine  and  Prudentius  as  a  prophecy  of  the  coming  of 
Christ11.  Vincent  of  Beauvais12  ascribed  the  conversion  of  three 

I  Poole’s  Medieval  Thought ,  339-46.  2  vol.  iv  1. 

3  The  Vatican  Glossariuni  Osberni  (xil)  in  Mai,  A uc tores,  viii  515,  also 
quotes  the  line  with  nasci. 

4  Philobiblon ,  §  162.  5  Philol.  lii  538. 

6  i  21,  7. 

7  (Theocr.,  Homer,  v  2,  4 — 6);  (Lucr.)  vi  1 — 6. 

8  See,  in  general,  Manitius,  l.  c. ;  Jessen  in  Philol.  xxx  236-8;  J.  Philippe, 
in  Rev.  de  V Hist,  des  Religions ,  xxxii  (1895)  284 — 302,  xxxiii  (1896)  19 — 36, 
125 — 162.  Cp.  Lambinus,  Lucr.  ed.  1583,  p.  vii;  Barth  on  Statius  Silv.  ii  7, 
76  (1664);  and  Munro,  Lucr.,  notes  i  p.  1 ;  also  Voigt,  i3  241  n,  2. 

9  Virgiliana  continentia  (c.  520  A.D.),  ed.  Helm,  1898. 

10  Schaarschmidt,  97  f. 

II  Comparetti,  Virgilio ,  i  132-5.  Jerome,  Ep.  53  (Migne,  xxii  545), 
describes  such  views  as  puerilia. 

12  Spec.  Hist,  xi  50. 


XXXII.] 


VIRGIL. 


6 1 1 

pagans  to  the  perusal  of  that  poem.  In  the  mystery-plays  of  the 
Middle  Ages,  Virgil,  with  the  Sibyl  and  the  Prophets,  appeared  as 
witnesses  to  the  Incarnation.  In  a  play  of  the  eleventh  century 
the  Praecentor ,  addressing  the  poet,  says  : — 

‘Vates  Maro  gentilium, 

Da  Christo  testimonium  ’ ; 

and  the  poet  replies  : — 

‘  Ecce  polo  demissa  solo  nova  progenies  est’1. 

It  was  also  a  pious  belief  in  Italy  that  St  Paul  had  visited  the 
poet’s  tomb  when  he  passed  through  Naples,  and  had  shed  tears 
of  regret  at  the  thought  that  the  poet  had  not  lived  at  a  time  when 
he  might  have  been  converted  by  the  Apostle.  A  hymn  in  honour 
of  St  Paul,  which  continued  to  be  sung  at  Mantua  down  to  the 
fifteenth  century,  included  the  following  stanza  : — 

‘Ad  Maronis  mausoleum 
Ductus  fudit  super  eum 
Piae  rorem  lacrymae; 

Quern  te,  inquit,  reddidissem, 

Si  te  vivum  invenissem, 

Poetarum  maxime  !  ’ 2 

To  Dante  (as  is  well  known)  Virgil  is  ‘the  glory  of  the  Latin 
race’3,  ‘the  honour  of  all  science  and  all  wit’4,  ‘the  sea  of  all 
wisdom’5,  ‘the  gentile  sage,  who  all  things  knew’6,  the  poet  who, 
as  the  symbol  of  human  wisdom  and  philosophy,  is  his  ‘leader, 
lord  and  master’7  in  his  journey  through  the  Inferno  and  the 
greater  part  of  the  Purgatorio8.  The  text  of  Virgil  rests  mainly 

1  Du  Meril,  Origines  Latines  du  theatre  moderne ,  p.  184  (Graf’s  Roma , 
ii  206). 

2  Daniel,  Thesaurus ,  v  2 66  (Comparetti,  Virgilio ,  i  131). 

3  Purg.  vii  16.  4  Inf  iv  73. 

5  Inf  viii  7.  6  Inf.  vii  3. 

7  Inf  ii  140.  De  Monarchia ,  ii  3,  divinus  poeta  noster  Virgilius. 

8  Virgil  leaves  Dante  in  Purg.  xxx  49  f. — A  long  list  of  reminiscences  of 
Virgil  in  the  Latin  poets  of  cent,  v — xn  is  collected  in  Zappert,  Virgils 
Fortleben  im  MA  (Vienna  Akad.,  1851);  see  also  Ribbeck’s  Index.  The 
subject  in  general  is  fully  treated  in  Comparetti’s  Virgilio  nel  Medio  Evo, 

2  vols.  (1872),  and  Graf’s  Roma,  ii  196 — 258;  cp.  Tunison’s  Master  Virgil, 
ed.  2  (1890),  and  C.  G.  Leland,  Unpublished  Legends  of  Virgil  (1899),  also 
Du  Meril  in  Melanges  archeol.  et  lit.  (1850),  425-78.  On  Virgil  in  mediaeval 
schools,  cp.  Specht,  Unterrichtswesen,  97  f.  See  also  Schanz,  11  i2  §  249. 

39—2 


6 12 


VIRGIL. 


[CHAP. 


on  the  Medicean  ms  (v),  once  at  Bobbio ;  the  Palatine  (v  ?), 
formerly  at  Heidelberg;  and  the  Vatican  ms  (3867),  with  16  illus¬ 
trations  (vi?),  from  St  Denis.  Hardly  a  quarter  of  the  text  is 
preserved  in  an  older  Vatican  ms  (iv?)  including  50  pictures  of 
Virgilian  scenes1.  There  are  seven  leaves,  from  a  St  Denis  ms 
(11  or  hi  ?),  now  in  the  Vatican  and  in  Berlin,  and  fragments  (iv  ?) 
at  St  Gallen2;  also  a  Paris  palimpsest  from  Corbie,  and  a  Verona 
palimpsest  with  scholia  (both  of  cent,  iv  ?).  Lastly,  we  have  two 
important  mss  from  Tours  and  Fleury  (ix),  now  in  Berne3  and 
Paris  respectively;  and,  among  the  Paris  mss  (ix — xn),  one  from 
the  abbey  of  St  Martial  at  Limoges. 

The  study  of  Horace  in  the  Caroline  age  is  represented  mainly 
by  Alcuin,  who  assumes  the  name  of  Flaccus,  and 

Horace  _ 

displays  a  knowledge  of  the  Odes  and  Epodes  as 
well  as  the  SatBes  and  Epistles ,  which  may  also  be  traced  in  the 
poems  of  Theodulfus,  bishop  of  Orleans  (d.  821).  The  oldest 
extant  ms  of  Horace,  the  codex  Bernensis ,  came  from  the  neigh¬ 
bourhood  of  Orleans.  The  famous  description  of  Death  (Odes, 
i  4,  13  f)  is  cited  as  follows  by  Notker  Balbulus  of  St  Gallen 
(cent,  ix): — 

‘  ut  cecinit  versu  verax  Horatius  iste, 
caetera  vitandus  lubricus  atque  vagus: 
pallida  Mors  aequo  pulsat  pede  sive  tabemas 
aut  regum  turres,  vivite,  erit,  venio’. 

In  the  Montpellier  ms  (cent,  x)  the  Ode  to  Phyllis  (iv  11)  is  set 
to  the  music  of  the  lines  ascribed  to  Paulus  Diaconus,  which 
supplied  Guido  of  Arezzo  with  the  names  of  the  notes,  ut,  re, 
mi,  fa,  sol,  la,  si: — 

‘  ut  queant  laxis  re sonare  fibris 
mita.  gestorum  famuli  tuorum, 
solve,  polluti  lahii  reatum, 

Aancte  /ohannes  ’ 4. 

\ 

1  Photographed  in  Fragmenta  et  picturae  Verg.  cod.  Vat.  3225  (Rome, 
1899);  partly  reproduced  in  G.  F.  Hill’s  Illustrations  of  School  Classics, 
No.  221  f  (1903). 

2  Facsimile  on  p.  185  supra. 

3  p.  459  f  supra. 

4  Dummler,  Po'etae  Lat.  Aevi  Car.,  Appendix  Carminum  Dubiorum,  i  83; 
Orelli’s  Horace ,  Appendix  to  vol.  ii  ed.  3. 


XXXII.] 


HORACE. 


613 


The  Satires  and  Epistles  supply,  in  250  lines,  an  eighth  part  of 
the  Epics  of  the  £Calf  and  Wolf’,  and  the  ‘Fox  and  Lion’,  known 
as  the  Ecbasis  Captivi  (shortly  after  936 )\  The  poet  is  called 
noster  Horatius  by  Benzo,  the  bishop  of  Alba  (fl.  1061),  who,  in 
the  Panegyric  dedicated  to  the  emperor  Henry  IV,  also  names 
Virgil,  Lucan,  Statius,  ‘Homer’,  and  Quintilian1 2.  The  Odes  and 
Epodes  (as  well  as  Virgil’s  Eclogues)  are  imitated  by  Metellus  of 
Tegernsee  (first  half  of  cent,  xii)  in  the  poems  written  in  many 
metres  in  honour  of  St  Quirinus3.  Horace  is  named  by  Abelard 
among  the  ‘pagan  philosophers’  cited  by  the  doctors  of  the 
Church.  In  1280  his  hexameter  poems  are  regarded  by  Hugo  of 
Trimberg4  as  more  important  than  the  lyrics:  the  former  are  the 
libri  principales ,  the  latter  are  minus  usuales.  Thus  the  moral 
precepts  embodied  in  his  rather  carelessly  written  hexameters 
were  apparently  recognised  as  possessing  a  permanent  value, 
while  his  elaborate  and  almost  inimitable  lyrics  were  regarded 
as  only  the  occasional  poetry  of  a  by-gone  age,  and  were  probably 
all  the  less  likely  to  be  appreciated,  or  imitated,  owing  to  the 
perplexing  variety  of  the  metres  employed.  The  distinction 
drawn  by  Hugo  is  fully  confirmed  by  statistics.  Out  of  1289 
scattered  quotations  from  Horace  in  the  Middle  Ages,  exactly 
250  (or  less  than  i)  are  from  the  lyrics  and  as  many  as  1039 
from  the  hexameters5.  The  total  number  of  quotations  from  the 
lyrics  in  Italy  is  only  19,  distributed  over  several  centuries,  and 
gradually  diminishing  till  they  reach  the  age  of  Dante,  when  they 
entirely  disappear.  Horace  was,  in  fact,  little  known  in  Italy 
before  the  Renaissance,  while  he  was  far  more  familiar  in  France 
and  Germany.  Germany  in  century  xm  claims  the  only  two 
mediaeval  quotations  from  the  Carmen  Saeculare.  It  was  in  the 
lands  watered  by  the  Rhine,  the  Mosel  and  the  Meuse  (within 
the  limits  corresponding  to  the  mediaeval  Lotharingia),  that 

1  ed.  Voigt  (1875);  Bursian,  i  49 f,  and  in  S.  Ber.  Bayr.  Akad.  1873,  46of; 
Ebert,  iii  276,  285 — 326;  and  Testimonia  in  Keller-Holder’s  Horace ,  ii  (1869). 

2  Graf,  Roma,  ii  172. 

3  Canisius,  Led .  Ant.  i,  appendix,  p.  35  b  Cp.  Bursian,  i  71;  S.  Ber. 
Bayr.  Akad.  1873,  Aufsatz  3;  and  Jahresb.  i  9. 

4  Regis trum ,  68  f. 

5  See  tabular  conspectus  in  Moore’s  Studies  in  Dante ,  i  201. 


614 


HORACE. 


[CHAP. 


Horace  was  best  appreciated:  and  the  same  is  true  of  other 
Latin  poets.  Thus  it  was  apparently  in  the  region  immediately 
surrounding  the  ancient  court  of  Aachen,  that  the  influence  of 
the  revival  of  learning  under  Charles  the  Great  lasted  longest1. 
Most  of  the  250  extant  mss  come  from  France.  The  oldest,  now 
known  as  the  codex  Bernensis,  which  belongs  to  the  Mavortian 
recension  (527)  and  is  written  in  an  Irish  hand  (ix),  came  from 
Fleury  on  the  Loire.  It  has  Celtic  glosses  here  and  there  in  the 
margin,  and  is  one  of  a  group  of  mss  now  ascribed  to  Irish 
contemporaries  of  Sedulius  of  Liege2.  Among  other  mss,  which 
are  interesting  by  reason  of  the  places  of  their  origin  or  their 
preservation,  we  have  the  Leiden  sis  (ix)  from  Beauvais,  the 
Bruxellensis  (xi)  probably  from  Gembloux,  Paris  mss  (x)  from 
Rheims  and  Autun,  a  Vatican  ms  (x)  from  Weissenburg  in 
Alsace,  and  others  at  Einsiedeln  (x)  and  St  Gallen  (xi).  The 
ancient  codex  Blandinius  perished  in  the  fire  which  destroyed 
in  1566  the  Benedictine  monastery  near  Ghent,  from  which  it 
had  been  borrowed  by  Cruquius3.  A  similar  fate  befell  a  ms  of 
century  ix — x  during  the  siege  of  Strassburg  in  1870. 

A  popularity  intermediate  between  that  of  Virgil  and  Horace 
was  attained  by  Ovid,  especially  in  his  Meta¬ 
morphoses ,  his  Fasti,  his  Ars  Aviator ia  and  his 
Remedia  Amoris4.  He  is  named  by  Isidore  of  Seville  in  his 
treatise  De  Summo  Bono  as  the  particular  pagan  writer  who  is 
most  to  be  avoided,  but  this  does  not  debar  the  bishop  from 
quoting  about  20  passages  from  the  poet.  It  is  fair,  however, 
to  add  that  he  only  once  quotes  the  Ars  Amatoria  (ii  24),  and 
even  this  quotation  (harmless  in  itself)  may  be  regarded  as 
neutralised  by  a  reminiscence  of  the  Remedia  Amoris  (140). 

]  The  Analecta  ad  carminum  Horatianorum  historiam,  carried  by 
M.  Hertz  (1876  f)  down  to  Venantius  Fortunatus,  have  been  continued  to  1300 
in  the  Analekten  of  Manitius  (1893).  Further  reminiscences  of  Horace  are 
quoted  by  Torraca,  Naove  Rassegne  (1:894),  pp.  421-9;  cp.  also  Graf’s  Roma , 
ii  293-6  ;  and  Schanz,  11  i2  §  265  a. 

2  Traube,  Abhandl.  Bayr.  Akad.  1892,  p.  348  f.  Complete  facsimile 
(Leyden,  1897),  pp.  333-72. 

3  p.  184  f  supra. 

4  Manitius  in  Philol.  Suppl.  vii  721-58.  Cp.  Specht,  Unterrichtswesen ,  99, 
and  Wattenbach,  Geschichtsquellen ,  i6  325. 


XXXII.] 


OVID. 


615 


Ovid  was  imitated  by  the  scholars  at  the  court  of  Charles  the 
Great,  one  of  whom  assumed  the  name  of  Naso,  while  another, 
Theodulfus,  believed  that  profound  truths  were  contained  in 
his  poems,  if  properly  (i.e.  allegorically)  understood1.  The 
Metamorphoses  was  translated  into  German  by  Albrecht  von 
Halberstadt  (1210),  and  parts  of  that  work,  and  the  Heroides,  were 
borrowed  in  the  vast  poem  of  Conrad  of  Wurzburg  on  the  Trojan 
War2.  The  Tristia  inspired  the  laments  of  Ermoldus  Nigellus 
(d.  834)  in  the  days  of  his  exile3.  Ancient  and  mediaeval  poems, 
which  Ovid  never  wrote,  were  ascribed  to  his  pen,  and,  in 
England,  the  spurious  De  Vetula  was  strangely  accepted  as 
genuine  by  Walter  Burley,  Richard  of  Bury  and  Thomas 
Bradwardine.  All  his  genuine  works  were  known  and  quoted, 
and  most  of  them  imitated  and  translated,  during  the  Middle 
Ages4.  He  is  often  cited  by  the  Troubadours  and  the 
Minnesingers.  In  the  twelfth  century  we  find  the  monks  of 
Canterbury  using  his  poems  as  a  treasury  of  stock  quotations5; 
and  even  the  Art  of  Love  was  allegorised  for  the  benefit  of  nuns6. 
It  is  only  the  first  book  of  the  Amores  that  is  much  quoted  in  the 
Middle  Ages.  There  is  no  poet  who  is  cited  oftener  by  Vincent 
of  Beauvais  (d.  1264).  In  the  middle  of  the  same  century  all 
the  works,  except  the  spurious  Halieutica ,  are  named  by  Richard 
de  Fournival  of  Amiens,  while  Conrad  von  Mure  of  Zurich 
(d.  1281)  quotes  from  all,  except  the  Medicatnina  Faciei.  Philip 
de  Vitri  translated  and  ‘moralised’  the  Metamorphoses  in  French 

1  p.  462  n.  4  stcpra. 

2  Bartsch,  Albrecht  ..u.  Ovid  im  MA  (1861). 

3  Migne,  cv  551 — 640;  Diimmler’s  Poetae  Lat.  Aevi  Car.  ii  1 — 93  (where 
Virgil  is,  however,  imitated  more  than  Ovid).  On  the  Tristia ,  cp.  Ehwald 
(Gotha,  1889). 

4  Gaston  Paris,  in  Hist.  Litt.  de  la  France ,  xxix  (1885)  455 — 525;  Litt. 
Fr.  au  Moyen  Age  (1888)  §  49  (a  poem  of  c.  70,000  verses  by  the  Franciscan 
Ch.  Legouais,  cent,  xiv) ;  and  La  Poesie  dn  Moyen  Age ,  ser.  1  (1895);  also 
E.  Stengel,  in  Romani sche  Philol.  xlvii  (1886).  On  the  French  imitations  and 
translations  of  the  Met.  cp.  L.  Sudre  (1893).  More  than  2000  lines  in  the 
Roman  de  la  Rose  are  inspired  by  Ovid.  See  also  Schanz,  II  i2  §  313. 

5  Stubbs,  Epp.  Cantuarienses  (1187-99)  trolls  Series;  and  Lectures, 
1291.  The  monks  quote  Ex  Ponto  i  10,  36;  ii  6,  38;  iv  16,  52;  Amores  i  15, 
39;  Ars  Am.  i  444;  Rem.  Am.  462. 

6  Wattenbach,  Sitzungsb.  Bayr.  Akad.  1873,  695. 


6 16 


OVID. 


[CHAP. 


verse,  at  the  request  of  Jean  de  Bourgogne,  wife  of  Philip  V 
(d.  1322)1.  Dante  regards  the  Metamorphoses  as  a  model  of 
style2,  and  as  a  work  requiring  allegorical  interpretation3,  in  which 
sense  it  was  fully  expounded  by  his  younger  contemporary 
Giovanni  del  Virgilio4.  Chaucer’s  Legetid  of  Good  Women  proves 
his  familiarity  with  the  Metamorphoses  and  Heroides ;  and  there  is 
no  Latin  poet  that  he  cites  more  frequently5.  The  interest  which 
he  excited  is  proved  by  the  mediaeval  story  of  the  two  students 
who  visited  the  tomb  of  Ovid,  eo  quod  sapiens  fuerat.  One  of 
them  asked  the  poet  which  was  (morally)  the  best  line  that  he 
had  ever  written;  a  voice  replied: — virtus  est  licitis  abstinuisse 
bonis*.  The  other  inquired  which  was  the  worst;  the  voice 
replied: — omne  juvans  statuit  Jupiter  esse  bonum 7 .  Thereupon 
both  the  students  proposed  to  pray  for  the  repose  of  the  poet’s 
soul,  but  the  voice  ungratefully  sent  them  on  their  way  with  the 
words : — nolo  Pater  Noster ;  carpe ,  viator,  iter*. 

The  earliest  extant  mss  of  any  part  of  Ovid,  those  in  Paris, 
Oxford  and  Vienna,  belong  to  century  ix.  The  Oxford  ms,  which 
includes  (besides  three  other  works)  the  first  book  of  the  Ars 
Amatoria  with  Latin  and  Celtic  glosses,  is  written  in  a  Welsh 
hand9.  It  was  once  in  the  possession  of  Dunstan,  abbot  of 
Glastonbury  from  943,  who  has  drawn  a  portrait  of  himself  on  its 
opening  page10;  and  there  is  a  certain  piquancy  at  finding  such  a 
ms  in  the  hands  of  one  who,  after  falling  in  love  with  a  lady 
of  the  court,  was  ultimately  among  the  strictest  of  monastic 
disciplinarians.  One  of  the  best  of  all  classical  mss  is  the  codex 

1  Le  Clerc,  Hist.  Lilt.,  406,  498. 

2  De  Vulg.  El.  ii  6. 

3  Conv.  ii  1 ;  iv  25,  27,  28;  cp.  Szorabathely,  Dante  ed  Ovidio  (Trieste, 
1888). 

4  Wicksteed  and  Gardner,  Dante  and  Giovanni  del  Virgilio ,  314  f. 

5  See  Index  to  Skeat’s  Chaucer. 

6  Her.  xvii  98,  est  virtus. 

7  A  paraphrase  of  Her.  iv  133,  Juppiter  esse  pium  statuit  quodcumque 
juvaret. 

8  T.  Wright,  Latin  Stories  from  MSS  of  XIII — XIV  cent.  (1842),  c.  45. 
On  Ovid  in  MA,  cp.,  in  general,  Graf,  Roma  ii  296 — 315,  and  Manitius  in 
Philol.  Suppl.  vii,  723-58. 

9  R.  Ellis,  Hermes ,  1880,  425  f,  and  XII  Facs.  1885,  pi.  1. 

10  Illustr.  ed.  of  Green’s  History ,  p.  T05. 


XXXII.] 


LUCAN. 


617 


Puteaneus  of  the  Heroides  (xi)  in  the  Paris  Library1.  The  ms  of 
the  Fasti  now  in  the  Vatican  (x)  has  been  identified  with  one 
formerly  at  Fleury.  The  best  ms  of  the  Metamorphoses  (x — xi) 
was  once  in  the  monastery  of  San  Marco  at  Florence.  A 
palimpsest  of  two  leaves  from  the  Epistolae  ex  Ponto ,  now  at 
Wolfenbiittel,  belongs  to  the  sixth  century. 

Lucan  was  one  of  the  best  known  of  the  Classical  poets.  He 
owed  his  popularity  largely  to  his  learned  allusions 

Lucan 

to  matters  of  geography,  mythology  and  natural 
history,  as  well  as  to  his  rhetorical  style  and  his  pointed  sayings. 
The  anonymous  author  of  a  Life  of  archbishop  Oswald  (d.  992)  in 
Latin  verse  (c.  xm?)  names,  as  the  three  typical  epic  poets,  Homer, 
Walter  of  Chatillon,  and  Lucan2.  He  was  also  regarded  as  a 
historical  authority,  being  the  main  source  of  the  mediaeval 
romances  on  Julius  Caesar.  He  is  quoted  by  Geoffrey  of 
Monmouth  and  John  of  Salisbury,  and  is  the  principal  model 
of  Gunther’s  Ligurinus  (1187).  His  poem  was  translated  into 
Italian  in  1310.  He  is  mentioned  by  Dante  as  the  last  of  the 
four  great  Latin  poets  in  the  fourth  canto  of  the  Inferno ;  and  is 
placed  by  Chaucer  on  the  summit  of  an  iron  column  in  the 
House  of  Fame ; 

‘  And  by  him  stoden  all  these  clerkes, 

That  write  of  Romes  mighty  werkes’3. 

On  certain  other  columns  in  the  same  building  the  poet  places 
Homer,  Virgil,  Ovid  and  Statius4. 

The  mss  of  Lucan  belong  to  two  recensions.  (1),  that  of 
Paulus  Constantinopolitanus,  identified  with  the  Papulus  Consts 
Theyderich  of  a  Paris  ms  of  674,  is  well  represented  by  one  of 
the  two  mss  at  Montpellier  (ix — x),  which  was  formerly  at  Autun : 
(2)  is  best  represented  by  a  ms  at  Leyden  written  in  a  German 
hand  (x).  Of  two  Paris  mss  of  century  ix,  one  came  from 
Epternach  and  is  possibly  the  source  of  the  ms  at  Berne;  while 
another  (xi)  came  from  Fleury.  There  are  also  two  sets  of 

1  Facs.  in  Palmer’s  ed. 

2  Warton’s  English  Poetry ,  Biss.  3,  i  231  (Hazlitt). 

3  iii  407-16. 

4  Cp.,  in  general,  Graf,  Roma ,  ii  315-8,  and  Manitius  in  Philol.  li  704-19. 


6 1 8 


STATIUS. 


[CHAP. 


fragmentary  palimpsests,  (i)  at  Rome,  and  (2)  at  Naples  and 
Vienna;  the  latter  once  belonged  to  Bobbio. 

Statius  was  no  less  famous  than  Lucan.  The  Thebais  was 
imitated  by  Chaucer  in  his  Troilus  and  Creseide  and 

Stjatius 

elsewhere;  and  the  Achilleis  by  Joseph  of  Exeter, 
and  by  Conrad  of  Wurzburg.  Both  of  his  great  epic  poems  are 
often  quoted1,  while  his  Silvae ,  imitated  only  once  in  the  Caroline 
age  by  Paulus  Diaconus2,  remained  practically  unknown3  till  its 
discovery  by  Poggio  at  St  Gallen  (1416).  In  an  ancient  Norman 
poem  he  is  called  Estace  le  Grand ,  though  Virgil  (in  the  same 
line)  has  no  epithet  whatsoever4.  He  was  expounded  by  Gerbert 
(x),  closely  imitated  in  the  same  century  in  the  Panegyricus 
Berengarii  (c.  920),  and  much  quoted  in  the  Glossarium  Osberni 
(xn)  as  well  as  by  Vincent  of  Beauvais  and  Conrad  von  Mure  (xm). 
Dante  attributes  the  ‘conversion’  of  Statius  to  the  perusal  of 
Virgil’s  Fourth  Eclogue 5.  It  has  been  suggested  that  Statius  was 
possibly  credited  with  an  aversion  to  idolatry,  owing  to  the  lines 
in  the  Thebaid: — 

*  nulla  autem  effigies,  nulli  commissa  metallo 
forma  dei,  mentes  habitare  et  pectora  gaudet’6. 

Among  the  more  than  70  mss  of  the  Thebais ,  the  earliest  are  the 
three  at  Paris,  viz.  two  from  Corbie,  i.e.  the  codex  Puteaneus  (ix) 
and  another  (x),  and  one  from  Epternach  (x);  also  mss  at 
Bamberg  (x),  Berne  (xi)  formerly  at  Fleury,  and  Leyden  (xi) 
once  at  Wurzburg.  The  ms  belonging  to  St  John’s  College, 
Cambridge  (x),  once  the  property  of  the  poet  Crashaw,  is  possibly 
identical  with  the  codex  Anglicanus  of  N.  Heinsius7.  The  far  fewer 
mss  of  the  Achilleis  include  the  above-mentioned  codex  Puteaneus 
(ix),  and  those  at  Eton  (xi),  Paris  (xn)  and  Wolfenbiittel  (xiv). 

1  Manitius  in  Philol.  lii  538-45.  Cp.  Schanz,  11  ii2  §  412. 

2  Carmen  35,  Curve  per  Ausoniae  non  segnis  epistola  campos  (Silv.  iv  4) ; 
Manitius  in  Philol.  Suppl.  vii  762. 

3  O.  Muller,  Rhein.  A/us.  xviii  189. 

4  Cp.  Graf,  Roma  ii  318-21,  and  Joly,  Benoit  de  Sainte- More,  ii  317  f. 

5  Purg.  xxii  66 — 7  3. 

6  Theb.  xii  493,  v.l.  ‘deae’. 

7  A  conjecture  due  to  Mr  H.  W.  Garrod,  C.C.C.,  Oxford,  who  collated  it 
in  1902. 


XXXIT.] 


MARTIAL.  JUVENAL. 


619 


Martial 


The  quotations  from  Martial  preserved  by  the  grammarians 
from  the  time  of  Victorinus,  Charisiiis  and  Servius, 
to  that  of  Priscian  and  Isidore,  prove  that  he  was 
well  known  from  the  fourth  to  the  sixth  centuries.  There  are 
many  reminiscences  of  his  epigrams  in  Ausonius  and  in 
Apollinaris  Sidonius;  but  it  is  the  variety  of  his  metres,  rather 
than  his  vocabulary,  that  finds  an  imitator  in  Luxorius  (cent.  vi)1. 
The  epitaph  of  a  bishop  of  Seville,  who  died  in  641,  ends  with  a 
line  from  Martial  (vii  76,  4): — ‘non  timet  hostiles  iam  lapis  iste 
minas’.  The  curious  name  of  Coquus  is  given  him  in  certain 
ancient  Glossaries2;  also  sometimes  in  John  of  Salisbury3,  Walter 
Map,  and  Conrad  von  Mure,  and  always  in  Vincent  of  Beauvais, 
who  reserves  the  name  of  Martial  for  Gargilius  Martialis.  The 
mss  of  Martial  fall  into  three  families.  The  first  includes  mss 
(ix — x)  at  Leyden,  Paris  (no.  8071)  and  Vienna,  the  last  of 
which  was  brought  from  France  into  Italy  by  Sannazaro  (early  in 
xvi).  These  mss  were  copied  from  a  lost  ms  of  century  vm — ix. 
The  second,  including  a  Lucca  ms  now  in  Berlin  (xii),  and  a 
Heidelberg  ms  now  in  the  Vatican  (xv),  also  an  Arundel  ms  in 
the  British  Museum,  formerly  in  the  possession  of  Pyrkheimer 
and  Thomas  Howard,  Duke  of  Norfolk  (xv),  and  a  ms  in 
Florence  (xv,  Laur.  35,  39)%  represents  the  recension  made  by 
Torquatus  Gennadius  (401).  The  third  (inferior  to  the  first  and 
second),  including  a  ms  in  the  Advocates’  Library  at  Edinburgh 
(x)  and  a  codex  Puteaneus  in  Paris  (x),  is  derived  from  a  ms  in 
Lombard  minuscules  of  century  vm  or  ix.  The  Excerpta 
Frisingensia ,  now  in  Munich,  belong  to  century  xi5. 

The  moral  earnestness  of  Juvenal  led  to  his  being  highly 
esteemed  in  the  Middle  Ages.  According  to  the 
monastic  catalogues,  his  Satires  were  preserved  in 
three  copies  at  Bobbio,  St  Bertin  and  Rouen,  and  in  two  at 
Corbie,  Bamberg  and  Durham.  Abbot  Marleberge  (1218) 


Juvenal 


1  Friedlander’s  Martial ,  p.  68  f.  2  id.  on  iii  77. 

3  iv  128,  230,  287  Giles;  cp.  Manitius,  in  Philol.  xlix  560-4,  esp.  note 

on  562.  ‘  Marcialis  coquus  ’  is  the  old  title  of  a  ms  in  C.C.C.  Cambridge. 

4  W.  M.  Lindsay,  Cl.  Rev.  1901,  413  f;  1902,  315  b 

5  See  Friedlander’s  ed.  pp.  67 — 108;  also  W.  M.  Lindsay’s  Ancient 
editions  of  Martial  (1902),  and  text  1902.  The  ‘  Lucca  MS  ’  formerly  belonged 
to  the  monastery  of  S.  Maria  Corte-Orlandini  (in  Lucca). 


620 


JUVENAL.  PERSIUS. 


[CHAP. 


brought  to  the  monastic  library  at  Evesham  a  Juvenal,  as  well  as 
a  Lucan  and  a  Cicero1.  He  is  often  quoted  by  Geoffrey  of 
Monmouth,  John  of  Salisbury,  Vincent  of  Beauvais,  and  others2. 
The  composers  of  the  semi-pagan  student-songs  of  the  twelfth 
and  thirteenth  centuries  magis  credunt  Juvenali ,  quain  doctrinae 
prophetali 3.  His  popularity  is  still  further  attested  by  the  fact 
that  (apart  from  scholia  of  the  fourth  century)  he  is  the  theme  of 
mediaeval  scholia  bearing  the  name  of  Cornutus.  A  reminiscence 
of  the  Tenth  Satire  may  be  noticed  in  Chaucer’s  Troilus  and 
Creseide  (iv  197): — 

‘O  Juvenal  lord,  true  is  thy  sentence, 

That  little  wenen  folk  what  is  to  yerne 

The  best  ms,  that  at  Montpellier  (cent,  ix),  which  includes 
Persius,  formerly  belonged  to  the  abbey  of  Lorsch,  and  may  once 
have  been  in  that  of  St  Gallen,  which  still  possesses  an  important 
ms  of  the  early  scholia  (ix),  almost  identical  with  those  in  the 
margin  of  the  Montpellier  ms.  There  are  also  early  mss  of 
Juvenal  in  the  British  Museum  (ix)4,  two  in  the  library  of 
Trinity  College,  Cambridge  (x)  from  St  Augustine’s,  Canterbury, 
besides  those  at  St  Gallen  and  Einsiedeln,  Vienna,  Leyden  and 
Paris  (x),  the  last  of  which  once  belonged  to  the  abbey  of 
St  Furcy  at  Lagny-sur-Marne.  Another  Paris  ms  (xi)  was 
formerly  in  the  abbey  of  St  Martial  at  Limoges.  Two  mss  of 
century  xi  at  Leyden  and  Florence  end  with  a  subscription 
referring  to  a  recension  by  Nicaeus,  a  pupil  of  Servius5.  Either 
Nicaeus  or  some  other  grammarian  composed  the  commentary 
from  which  our  earlier  scholia  are  derived;  and  a  further  recension 
connected  with  the  name  of  Epicarpius  (v?)  is  attested  in  a  Paris 
ms  (xi).  From  a  copy  of  this  recension,  in  which  the  last  sheet 
was  missing,  came  the  revision  connected  with  the  later  scholia 
bearing  the  name  of  ‘Cornutus’,  and  this  in  turn  was  the  origin  of 
the  recension  by  Eric  of  Auxerre6,  which  is  the  source  of  all  our 

1  Chron.  Abb.  de  Evesham ,  p.  267  Macray. 

2  Manitius  in  Philol.  1  354-68.  Cp.  Schanz,  11  ii2  §  420  a. 

8  Anz. f.  Kunde  d.  deutschen  Vorzeil ,  1871,  232. 

4  Add.  15,600  (one  of  59  mss);  Winstedt,  Cl.  Rev.  xvi  40. 

5  Legi  ego  Niceus  Romae  apud  Servium  magistrum  et  emendavi. 

6  Heiricus  magis  ter  is  quoted  on  ix  27. 


XXXII.]  PROPERTIUS.  TIBULLUS.  VALERIUS.  PHAEDRUS.  621 


existing  mss,  except  the  Oxford  ms  (xi),  which  has  supplied  us 
with  additions  to  the  Sixth  Satire  (1899)1. 

The  popularity  of  Persius  is  attested  by  many  quotations, 
especially  in  Rabanus  Maurus,  Ratherius  of  Verona,  Persius 
Gunzo  of  Novara,  and  John  of  Salisbury2.  His 
name  appears  often  in  mediaeval  catalogues  of  centuries  ix — xn. 
Among  the  three  best  mss  are  two  at  Montpellier  (ix  and  ix — x), 
the  latter  of  which,  like  the  ms  in  the  library  of  the  Canons  of  St 
Peter’s  at  Rome  (ix),  belongs  to  a  recension  of  402  a.d.  There 
are  also  good  mss  in  Paris  (x  and  xi),  and  Leyden  (x — xi),  with 
two  closely  connected  mss,  both  written  in  England,  one  in 
Trinity  College,  Cambridge  (x),  and  the  other  in  the  Bodleian 
(xi),  which  was  given  to  the  cathedral  library  of  Exeter  by 
bishop  Leofric  (1050-72). 

The  only  complete  ms  of  Propertius  earlier  than  century  xv 
is  that  at  Wolfenbiittel  (xn),  formerly  at  Naples, 
ms  known  to  Petrarch  and  Politian.  Little 


a 


MSS  of 

Propertius, 

Tibullus, 

Val.  Flaccus, 
Phaedrus 


more  than  the  first  book  is  contained  in  a  Leyden 
ms  (xiv).  The  earliest  evidence  for  the  text  of 
Tibullus  is  contained  in  certain  Excerpta  Parisina 
(ix — x)  known  to  Vincent  of  Beauvais  (p.  558);  later  than  these 
are  the  Excerpta  Frisingensia  (xi)  now  at  Munich;  the  earliest 
complete  ms,  that  at  Milan  (xiv),  was  once  in  the  possession  of 
Coluccio  Salutato.  The  text  of  Valerius  Flaccus  rests  on  the 
Vatican  ms  (ix — x)  and  the  ms  found  by  Poggio  at  St  Gallen 
(1416)  and  now  known  only  through  copies,  especially  Poggio’s 
copy  in  Madrid  and  an  independent  copy  at  Queen’s  College, 
Oxford3.  The  only  complete  ms  of  Phaedrus  is  the  codex 
Pithoeanus ,  now  at  Du  Mesnil  near  Mantes  (ix — x).  We  have 
to  be  content  with  secondary  evidence  of  the  text  of  its  twin- 
brother,  the  ms  formerly  at  Rheims,  which  perished  by  fire  in  1774. 

The  fame  of  Boethius,  the  ‘last  of  the  Romans’,  wTas  per¬ 
petuated  throughout  the  whole  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  He  was  known  not  only  as  the  first  inspirer 
of  the  great  scholastic  problem  and  the  translator  of  certain  of 


Boethius 


1  S.  G.  Owen,  Cl.  Rev.  xi  402 ;  Winstedt,  ib.  xiii  201. 

2  Manitius  in  Philol.  xlvii  710-20. 

3  A.  C.  Clark,  Cl.  Rev.  xiii  119 — 124.  ‘Manilius’  similarly  ‘survived’  at 
Gembloux  and  elsewhere  (x — xn),  awaiting  the  Renaissance. 


622 


BOETHIUS.  THE  POPULAR  POETS.  [CHAP. 


the  logical  treatises  of  Aristotle1,  but  also  as  the  author  of 
the  Consolatio ,  which  is  preserved  in  many  mss  (ix — x),  and  was 
specially  familiar  to  Dante  and  to  Chaucer.  The  blended  prose 
and  poetry  of  that  work  found  frequent  imitators,  as  in  the  case 
of  Bernard  Silvester  and  Alain  de  l’lsle2.  Its  author  is  named 
with  Terence,  Sallust,  Cicero,  Virgil  and  Statius,  as  well  as 
Arator,  Prudentius,  Sedulius  and  Juvencus,  in  a  poem  combining 
wide  reading  with  much  ignorance  of  grammar,  composed  by 
Winric,  master  of  the  cathedral  school  of  Trier  in  the  twelfth 
century3. 

The  principal  ancient  and  ‘modern’  poets  are  briefly  reviewed 
as  models  of  style  in  the  third  part  of  Eberhard  of  Bethune’s 
Labyrinthus  (1212 )4,  where  Horace  is  strangely  omitted.  A 
typical  list  of  the  authors  studied  in  the  schools  of  the  Middle 
Ages  may  be  found  in  the  rhyming  lines  of  Hugo  of  Trimberg’s 
Registrum  (1280)5,  while,  in  a  satire  by  a  monk  of  Erfurt 
(1281-3)6,  we  have  a  shorter  list,  including  the  grammarians 
Donatus  and  Priscian,  and  the  poets  Ovid,  Juvenal,  Terence, 
Horace,  Persius,  Plautus,  Virgil,  Lucan,  Maximianus  and 
Boethius7.  The  library  of  the  abbey  of  St  Edmund  at  Bury 
included  Plautus,  Terence,  Horace,  Juvenal,  Persius,  Virgil  and 
Statius8.  A  ms  of  Silius  Italicus  is  entered  in  a  catalogue. of  St 
Gallen  in  the  ninth  century,  but  otherwise  he  has  left  no  trace  of 
his  existence  from  the  time  of  Apollinaris  Sidonius9  to  that  of 
Poggio  (1416).  In  the  absence  of  all  knowledge  of  the  Greek 
Homer,  who  ‘apud  Graecos  remanens  nondum  est  translatus  ’ 10, 
mediaeval  students  read  of  the  Trojan  War  in  the  poem  of 

1  p.  239  supra. 

2  This  kind  of  composition  was  called  prosimetrum  in  cent.  XI I — xm 
(Norden,  756). 

3  ed.  Kraus  (Bursian  i  70).  On  Boethius,  cp.  Graf,  ii  322 — 367. 

4  p.  532  supj'a. 

5  ed.  Hlimer;  cp.  Bursian,  i  82. 

6  Nicolai  de  Bibera  Occulti  Erfordensis  carmen  satiricum ,  ed.  T.  Fischer 
(1870). 

7  Bursian,  i  83 ;  Gottlieb,  Mitt.  Bibliotheken ,  446.  Cp.  Joannes  de 
Garlandia’s  list  on  p.  528  n.  7. 

8  M.  R.  Janies,  Bibl.  Buriensis,  103. 

9  Carm.  ix  260. 


10  Hugo’s  Registrum ,  162. 


XXXII.] 


CICERO. 


623 


‘Pindarus  Thebanus’1  and  the  prose  narratives  of  Dictys  and 
Dares2;  and  the  Tale  of  Troy  was  the  theme  of  many  Latin 
and  vernacular  poems  in  the  Middle  Ages3. 

Turning  from  verse  to  prose,  we  find  Cicero  revered  through¬ 
out  the  Middle  Ages  as  the  great  representative  of 

1  Cicero 

the  ‘liberal  art’  of  Rhetoric.  His  famous  sayings 
were  collected  by  Bede;  his  De  Inventione  was  the  source  of  a 
short  treatise  on  rhetoric  by  Alcuin;  the  Tusculan  Disputations 
were  quoted,  and  the  pro  Milone ,  the  first  Catilinarian  and  the 
second  Verrine  imitated,  by  Einhard ;  while  the  text  of  his 
Epistles ,  which  was  not  unknown  to  the  Irish  monk,  Sedulius4, 
was  carefully  studied  by  Servatus  Lupus5.  He  is  ‘the  king  of 
eloquence’  to  Paschasius  Radbertus  in  the  ninth  century,  and  to 
William  of  Malmesbury  in  the  twelfth.  In  the  former  century 
Almannus6  declares  that  to  celebrate  St  Helena  adequately 
would  call  for  an  eloquence  greater  even  than  that  of  Cicero. 
The  knowledge  of  Cicero  exhibited  by  all  the  above  writers,  and 
by  Rabanus  Maurus  and  Joannes  Scotus7,  is  far  exceeded  by  that 
shown  by  the  presbyter  Hadoardus,  the  custos  of  an  unidentified 
library  in  Western  Frankland,  whose  excerpts  in  a  Vatican  ms  of 
century  ix  include  many  passages  from  the  De  Oratore ,  and 
more  than  600  from  the  philosophical  works8.  In  the  tenth 

century  Gerbert  is  specially  interested  not  only  in  the  rhetorical 
and  philosophical  works  but  also  in  the  speeches,  and  the 
preservation  of  these  last  in  France  is  possibly  due  to  his 
influence9.  In  the  same  century  the  Letters  existed  in  the  library 

1  Quoted  by  Ermenrich  (850)  and  in  the  Gesta  Berengarii  (920),  and  often 
in  later  works  (Manitius  in  Philol.  1  368-72).  Cp.  Teuffel,  §  320,  7. 

2  ib.  §§  423,  471. 

3  A.  Joly,  Benoit  de  Sainte-More  et  le  Roman  de  Troie ,  on  les  7netajnorphoses 
d  Ho  mere  de  i epopee  Greco- Latine  an  Moyen  Age  ( Mem .  de  la  soc.  des  Ant.  de 
Norm,  xxvii;  also  printed  separately,  1870-1).  Benoit  was  plagiarised  by 
Guido  delle  Colonne  (p.  524  supra),  and  either  or  both  may  have  been  the 
source  of  Chaucer’s  Troilus.  Cp.  also  Dunger  (Dresden,  1869),  Korting 
(Halle,  1874),  Gorra  (Turin,  1887),  H.  Morley,  English  Writers ,  iii  207-31; 
and  Morf  in  Romania ,  1892. 

4  Mommsen,  Hermes ,  xiii  298.  5  p.  470  supra. 

■'  Acta  SS.  Bolland.,  August  iii  581  a. 

7  P.  Schwenke,  Philol.  Suppl.  v  (1889)  404-9. 

8  Schwenke,  ib.  397 — 588.  9  p.  490  supra. 


624 


CICERO. 


[CHAP. 


at  Lorsch,  and  they  were  known  to  Luitprand1.  Honorius  of 
Autun  (d.  1136),  in  his  treatise  De  Animae  Exsilio 2,  says  that 
those  who  dwell  in  the  ‘City  of  Rhetoric’  are  taught  by  Tully  to 
speak  with  grace,  and  are  trained  by  him  in  the  virtues  of 
prudence,  fortitude,  justice  and  temperance.  In  the  same 
century  Abelard  cites  only  four  of  his  works,  the  De  Inventione 
and  Topica ,  and  the  De  Officiis  and  Paradoxa.  Abelard’s  pupil, 
John  of  Salisbury,  knew  many  more,  and  (besides  being  acquainted 
with  the  Letters 3)  was  specially  familiar  with  the  philosophical 
treatises,  which  are  also  quoted  by  his  friend,  Peter  of  Blois 
(d.  1204).  Vincent  of  Beauvais  (d.  1264)  and  Walter  Burley 
(d.  1 345  ?)  give  long  lists  of  his  works,  but  there  is  nothing  to 
show  that  the  former  really  knew  the  Letters  included  in  his  list. 
The  latter  does  not  even  name  them4.  Meanwhile,  in  Germany, 
Lambert  of  Hersfeld5  ( fl .  1058-77)  is  familiar  with  the 

Catilinarians ;  Conrad  of  Hirschau  (e.  1100),  who  knew  the 
Laelius  and  Cato  alone,  is  eloquent  in  praise  of  their  author6; 
and  Wibald,  abbot  of  Corvey  (1146),  whose  Letters  show  an 
extensive  knowledge  of  Latin  literature,  is  eager  to  make  a 
collection  of  all  the  works  of  Cicero  in  a  single  volume7.  Herbord 
of  Michelsberg,  near  Bamberg  (d.  1168),  quotes  whole  chapters 
of  the  De  Officiis 8,  and  Ethelred  of  Rievaulx  (d.  1166)  wrote  a 

1  Cic.  Epp.  ed.  Mendelssohn,  p.  vif. 

2  c.  3,  Migne  clxxii  1244.  3  Mendelssohn,  p.  ix. 

4  Orelli’s  Cicero,  ill2  x — xi.  The  Letters  are  there  described  as  unknown 

in  cent,  x — middle  of  cent,  xiv ;  but  we  shall  see  shortly  that  there  were  3  mss 
at  Cluni  in  cent.  xn. 

5  ed.  Holder- Egger  (Norden,  Kunstprosa ,  708). 

6  Dial .  sup .  auctores,  51  (ed.  Shepps),  Tullius  nobilissimus  auctor  iste 
libros  plurimos  philosophicos  studiosis  philosophiae  pernecessarios  edidit  et  vix 
similem  in  prosa  vel  praecedentem  vel  subsequentem  habuit  (Norden,  l.c.). 

7  Jafife,  Bibl.  Per.  Germ,  i  3 26  (after  asking  the  abbot  of  Iiildesheim  for 
Tullii  libros  he  adds)  ‘nec  pati  possumus,  quod  illud  nobile  ingenium,  ilia 
splendida  inventa,  ilia  tanta  rerum  et  verborum  ornamenta  oblivione  et 
negligentia  depereant ;  set  ipsius  opera  universa,  quantacunque  inveniri 
poterunt,  in  unum  volumen  confici  volumus  ’ ;  and  he  receives  from 
Hildesheim  the  Philippics ,  the  De  Lege  Agraria  and  the  Letters  (Norden, 
709;  Bursian,  i  75). 

8  ii  15,  16,  in  Vita  Ottonis  Episcopi  Baben bergensis  (Mon.  Hist.  Germ,  xx 
7o6-7)* 


XXXII.] 


CICERO. 


625 


Ciceronian  dialogue  on  Christian  friendship.  In  century  xn  the 
library  of  Cluni  possessed  three  mss  of  the  Letters  and  of  the 
Speeches ,  five  of  the  philosophical  and  seven  of  the  rhetorical 
works.  Of  the  mss  of  the  Speeches  one  has  been  identified  with  a 
ninth  century  ms  containing  the  greater  part  of  the  Catilinarian 
Speeches ,  and  of  the  pro  rege  Deiotaro ,  with  a  portion  of  the  pro 
Ligario  and  Second  Verrine ,  now  in  Lord  Leicester’s  collection  at 
Holkham1.  The  library  of  the  Sorbonne  (1338)  had  24  mss  of 
the  rhetorical  and  philosophical  works,  as  well  as  the  Letters. 
The  Speeches  best  known  in  the  Middle  Ages  were  those  against 
Verres,  Catiline  and  Antonius.  The  rhetoric  of  attack  was 
apparently  more  popular  than  that  of  defence.  But  the  latter 
was  also  appreciated.  Philip  Harcourt,  bishop  of  Bayeux, 
bequeathed  to  Corbie  a  collection  of  books  including  the  pro 
'  Ligario,  Marcello  and  Deiotaro ,  the  De  Divinatione,  Natura 
Deorum,  Legibus  and  Fato,  the  Tusculan  Disputatio?is  and  lad 
Hortensium  liber  /’2,  probably  meaning  thereby  not  the  lost 
Hortensius  but  the  second  book  of  the  Prior  Academics,  described 
by  Vincent  of  Beauvais3  as  the  Dialogus  ad  Hortensium.  It  may 
be  remembered  that  the  three  speeches  above  mentioned  were 
translated  by  Brunetto  Latini  (d.  1294)4.  Dante’s  references  to 
Cicero  are  primarily  to  the  De  Officiis  and  Cato,  secondarily  to 
the  Laelius  and  De  Finibus,  with  one  or  two  notices  of  the  De 
Lnventione  and  Paradoxa.  The  Laelius  is  one  of  the  two  books 
in  which  he  finds  consolation  on  the  death  of  Beatrice5. 

Among  the  earlier  mss  of  Cicero,  the  most  important  of  the 
codices  mutili  of  the  De  Oratore  and  Orator  is  the  ms  now  at 
Avranches  (ix)  formerly  in  the  abbey  of  Mont-St-Michel.  The 
codex  mutilus  of  the  De  Oratore  in  the  British  Museum  (ix) 
came  from  the  abbey  of  Cormery,  S.E.  of  Tours;  and  the 
corresponding  ms  at  Erlangen  (x)  was  copied  for  Gerbert  at 

1  W.  Peterson,  Anecd.  Oxon.  ix;  Cl.  Rev.  1902,  322,  401;  doubted  by 
R.  Ellis,  ib.  460. 

2  Ravaisson,  Les  Bibl.  de  VOuest,  p.  xi. 

3  Spec.  Doctr.  v  12  (Kayser’s  Cic.  xi  56). 

4  p.  590  supra. 

5  E.  Moore,  Studies  in  Dante ,  i  258 — 273.  Cp.,  in  general,  P.  Deschamps, 
Essai  Bibliographique  sur  Ciceron  (1863);  Graf,  Roma ,  ii  259 — 267;  Norden, 
708-10  n. 


S. 


40 


626 


CICERO. 


[CHAP. 


Aurillac.  The  complete  text  of  the  above  works,  and  of  the 
Brutus ,  was  unknown  until  1422.  The  Topica  is  included  in 
mss  at  Einsiedeln  (ix)  and  St  Gallen  (x).  There  are  important 
mss  of  certain  of  the  Speeches  in  Rome  (vm),  Milan  (ix),  Paris 
(ix),  and  Munich,  viz.  two  from  Tegernsee  (x,  xi)  and  one  from 
St  Peter’s,  Salzburg  (xi) ;  also  a  ms  from  Reichenau  at  Zurich  (xi), 
and  a  ms,  probably  from  Cluni,  at  Holkham  Hall,  Norfolk  (ix)1. 
The  fragmentary  palimpsests  in  Turin  (111?  and  lv?),  Milan  and 
Rome  (v?)  once  belonged  to  Bobbio;  another  in  the  Vatican 
(iv?)  was  for  a  short  time  at  S.  Andrea  della  Valle,  near  Pompey’s 
theatre2.  The  fragments  of  the  pro  Fonteio  and  in  Bisonem, 
included  in  a  ms  at  Cues,  have  been  traced  to  Sedulius  of  Liege3. 
The  Brussels  ms  of  the  pro  Archia  (xi)  came  from  the  abbey  of 
Gembloux.  For  the  Epp.  ad  Atticum  we  have  no  longer  to  rely 
entirely  on  the  transcript  in  Florence  (Zaur.  49,  18)  made  at 
Milan  in  1392,  possibly  from  the  ms  found  by  Petrarch  at  Verona 
in  1345;  there  is  independent  evidence  in  a  few  leaves  of  a 
ms  at  Wurzburg  (xi);  also  in  six  Italian  mss  and  two  in  Paris 
(xiv — xv)4.  For  the  Epp.  ad  Familiares  our  main  authority  is 
another  ms  (ix — x)  in  Florence  (. Laur .  49,  9),  which  was  taken 
from  Vercelli  to  Milan,  where  it  was  first  heard  of  in  1389;  but 
there  is  an  independent  transcript  of  the  two  halves  of  the  same 
original  in  the  British  Museum  (xii,  Harl.  2773;  and  xi,  Harl. 
2682 ;  the  latter  from  Cologne5).  The  first  half  alone  is  preserved 
in  a  Paris  ms  (xii),  formerly  in  the  library  of  Notre-Dame.  The 
two  mss  of  the  first  half  had  a  common  origin.  The  Harleian  ms 
of  the  second  half  (xi),  together  with  an  Erfurt  ms  (xii — xm),  and 
a  Palatine  ms  in  the  Vatican,  formerly  at  Heidelberg  (xv — xvi), 
form  an  independent  German  group,  the  last  at  least  of  the  three 

1  p.  625  supra. 

2  This  palimpsest  (of  the  Verrines )  possibly  came  from  Bobbio,  but  it  has 
not  been  traced  to  any  earlier  owner  than  Pius  II  (d.  1464),  on  the  later 
fortunes  of  whose  MSS  cp.  E.  Piccolomini  in  Bolletino  Storico  Senese ,  1899, 
fasc.  iii.  Text  first  published  by  Mai  (1828),  Cl.  Auctores ,  ii  390  f,  in  Verrem. 

3  Traube,  Abhandl.  Bayr.  Akad.  1892,  p.  367  f. 

4  C.  A.  Lehmann  (Weidmann,  1892);  cp.  S.  B.  Platner,  in  A.J.  P.  1899, 
290  f;  1900,  420  f;  and  A.  C.  Clark,  in  Philol.  1901,  195  b 

5  The  same  ms  is  specially  important  for  the  Speeches  pro  Milone ,  Marcello , 
Ligario  and  Rege  Deiotaro  (ed.  A.  C.  Clark,  1900). 


XXXII.] 


VARRO.  CATO.  SENECA. 


627 


having  probably  been  copied  c.  1500  from  a  lost  ms  from  Lorsch1. 
There  is  also  a  leaf  of  a  palimpsest  from  Bobbio,  nowin  Turin  (v). 
Among  the  numerous  mss  of  the  philosophical  works  are  those  in 
Florence  (ix?),  Rome  (ix,  x),  Vienna  (ix),  Leyden  (ix — xi)  and 
Paris  (ix — xii).  The  Paris  ms  of  the  De  Amicitia  (xi)  came  from 
the  abbey  of  St  Martial  at  Limoges.  There  are  also  mss  of  the 
De  Officiis  at  Berne  (ix),  and  in  the  British  Museum  (x),  and 
a  ms  of  the  De  Senedute  at  Zurich  (xn);  the  latter  once  belonged 
to  Reichenau,  but  there  are  earlier  mss  in  Paris  (ix)  and  Leyden 
(ix  and  x).  One  of  the  former  (ix)  came  from  Tours ;  one  of  the 
latter,  from  Fleury.  Considerable  portions  of  the  De  Republica 
were  published  by  Mai  from  a  Vatican  palimpsest  formerly  at 
Bobbio  (v)2.  The  best  ms  of  Varro,  De  lingua  Latina ,  is  in 
Florence  (xi),  but  an  extract  from  that  work  is  included  in  a 
much  earlier  miscellaneous  ms,  now  in  Paris,  which  was  copied 
at  Monte  Cassino  about  800  a.d.  The  text  of  Varro  De  re  rustica 
(like  that  of  the  corresponding  work  by  Cato)  depends  on  a  long- 
lost  ms  formerly  in  the.  library  of  San  Marco,  Florence. 

Cato  the  elder  enjoyed  the  reputation  of  being  the  writer  of 
the  widely  popular  Distichs 3,  which,  with  the  fables 
of  ‘  Aesop  ’  and  Avianus,  were  studied  by  beginners  Seneca 
in  the  mediaeval  schools.  Seneca  was  famous  as 
the  author  of  the  Naturales  Quaestiones ,  and  still  more  as  a 

moralist.  He  is  called  Seneca  morale  by  Dante4,  and  is  quoted 

* _  * 

by  writers  such  as  Otto  of  Freising,  Giraldus  Cambrensis  and 
Roger  Bacon,  oftener  than  either  Cicero  or  ‘  Cato  ’.  He  was 
believed  to  be  a  Christian,  his  ‘  correspondence  with  St  Paul ’5 
being  first  mentioned  by  Jerome,  who  accepts  it  as  genuine  and 
includes  its  supposed  author  among  his  scriptores  ecclesiastici. 
Jerome’s  opinion  was  followed  by  John  of  Salisbury,  Vincent 
of  Beauvais  and  many  others6.  The  ‘  Palatine  ’  ms  of  Seneca 

1  Mendelssohn,  ed.  1893,  pp.  vi,  xxiv;  cp.  Gurlitt  (1896). 

2  For  further  details  as  to  the  MSS  of  the  several  speeches  and  philosophical 
works,  see  Teuffel,  §§  179,  183-5,  and  the  current  critical  editions. 

3  Manitius  in  Philol.  li  164-71;  Graf,  Roma ,  ii  -268-78. 

4  Inf.  iv  141.  5  Haase’s  Seneca ,  iii  476 — 481. 

6  Graf,  ii  278 — 293.  Bernard  of  Clairvaux  (Ep.  256)  borrows  a  spirited 
sentence  from  Seneca  (Ep.  20,  7)  in  urging  the  reluctant  pope,  Eugenius  III, 
to  proclaim  a  new  Crusade  (1146). 


40 — 2 


628 


PLINY  THE  ELDER. 


[CHAP. 


De  Beneficiis  and  De  dementia  (ix)  came  from  Lorsch.  Of 
the  mss  of  the  Letters ,  that  at  Bamberg  (ix)  is  now  the  sole 
authority  for  Letters  89-124.  The  earliest  of  the  mss  of  the 
Letters  in  Paris  (ix,  x,  xi)  probably  came  from  Corbie;  there  are 
also  mss  in  Florence,  Leyden  and  Oxford  (x).  The  ms  of  the 
Dialogues  in  Milan  (xi)  was  probably  copied  at  Monte  Cassino. 
The  Naturales  Quaestiones  are  preserved  in  mss  at  Bamberg, 
Leyden  and  Geneva  (xn)  and  at  Montpellier  (xm).  The  ms  of 
the  Tragedies  (xi)  in  the  Laurentian  Library  came  from  the 
Convent  of  San  Marco.  The  principal  mss  of  the  elder  Seneca 
are  those  of  century  x  in  the  Vatican,  and  at  Antwerp  and 
Brussels,  with  the  excerpts  at  Montpellier,  the  last  of  which 
belonged  in  century  xiv  to  the  Benedictine  abbey  of  St  Thierry 
near  Rheims.  The  best  ms  of  the  unabridged  text,  that  in 
Brussels,  formerly  belonged  to  Nicolas  Cusanus,  and  may  have 
had  a  common  origin  with  the  ms  of  the  poems  of  Sedulius ;  it 
has  hence  been  inferred  that  the  preservation  of  the  elder 
Seneca’s  Greek  quotations,  however  inaccurately  they  have  been 
transcribed,  is  probably  due  to  the  influence  of  the  Irish  monk 


Pliny 
the  elder 


of  Liege1. 

Pliny  the  elder,  whose  ‘Natural  History’  exactly  suited  the 
encyclopaedic  tastes  of  the  Middle  Ages,  was 
widely  read  in  the  original,  and  also  in  the 
excerpts  of  Solinus.  In  the  mediaeval  catalogues 
he  is  named  nine  times  in  France  and  in  Germany,  and  only 
twice  in  Italy  and  England.  But  this  gives  a  very  imperfect 
impression  of  the  care  with  which  he  was  studied  in  England. 
A  more  convincing  proof  of  the  thoroughness  of  that  study 
may  be  found  in  the  Northumbrian  excerpts  now  in  Berne  (vm)2, 
and  in  the  fact  that  Robert  of  Cricklade,  prior  of  St  Frideswide 
at  Oxford,  dedicated  to  Henry  II  (1154-89)  a  Defloratio 
consisting  of  nine  books  of  selections  taken  from  one  of  the 
older  class  of  mss,  which  has  been  recently  recognised  as 
sometimes  supplying  us  with  the  only  evidence  for  the  true 


1  Traube,  Abhandl.  Bayr.  Akad.  1892,  p.  356. 

2  K.  Rtick,  Ausziige  (Munchen,  1888) ;  Welzhofer  on  Bede’s  quotations,  in 
Christ- Abhandl.  1891,  25 — 41.  King  John  lent  a  MS  of  Pliny  to  the  abbot  of 
Reading  (Pauli,  Gesch.  v.  Engl,  iii  486). 


XXXII.] 


PLINY  THE  YOUNGER. 


629 


text1.  The  more  important  of  the  200  mss  of  Pliny  are  divided 
into  the  incomplete  vetustiores  and  the  more  complete  recentiores. 
The  best  of  the  former  is  a  ms  of  books  xxxii-vii,  now  at 
Bamberg  (x).  Further,  there  is  a  palimpsest  of  parts  of  books 
xi — xv,  formerly  at  Reichenau,  and  now  in  the  Benedictine 
abbey  of  St  Paul  in  the  E.  of  Carinthiaj  a  ms  of  books  ii — vi  in 
Leyden  (ix)  and  two  in  Paris  (ix — x).  One  of  the  latter  (G), 
and  the  Vatican  ms  (D),  and  a  Leyden  ms  (V),  are  separate  parts 
of  a  single  ms  formerly  at  Corbie.  Even  before  the  Corbie  ms 
had  been  revised  and  corrected,  it  was  copied  early  in  century  x 
in  another  of  the  mss  now  at  Leyden  (F)2. 

The  younger  Pliny  was  little  known,  being  mentioned  only 
twice  in  the  mediaeval  catalogues  of  Germany, 
and  only  thrice  in  those  of  France,  but  his  Letters  Se^younger 
are  quoted  once  by  Ratherius  of  Verona3,  and  his 
Panegyric  by  John  of  Salisbury4,  while  Walter  Map  even  knows 
of  Pliny’s  wife,  Calpurnia5.  For  the  Letters  we  have  to  depend 
mainly  on  the  Medicean  ms  (ix)  consisting  of  the  first  17  quires 
of  the  sole  ms  of  the  early  books  of  Tacitus’  Armais.  This  ms 
of  the  Letters  was  transcribed  (probably  before  it  left  Germany)  in 
a  ms  now  at  Prague  (xiv).  The  Vatican  ms  of  books  i — iv  (x) 
was  copied  from  the  same  original  as  the  Medicean.  For  the 
latter  part  of  book  ix  we  depend  partly  on  a  Dresden  ms  (xv), 
one  of  a  class  containing  eight  books  in  all,  but  omitting  book  viii; 
the  date  of  the  oldest  of  this  class,  now  at  Monte  Cassino,  is  1429. 
There  is  also  a  third  class  of  mss  including  only  100  Letters. 
This  is  represented  by  Florence  mss  from  the  Riccardi  palace 
(ix — x)  and  from  San  Marco  (x — xi).  It  was  mss  of  this  class 


1  K.  Ruck  in  S.  Ber.  Bayr.  Akad.  3  Mai  1902,  p.  195  f.  On  quotations 
from  Pliny,  see  Manitius  in  Philol.  xlix  380-4 ;  on  those  from  Solinus, 
ib.  xlvii  562-5.  Cp.  Detlefsen,  ib.  xxviii  296  f,  and  Riick,  S.  Ber.  Bayr. 
Akad.  1898,  203 — 318.  Robert  of  Cricklade  became  prior  in  1130  or  1141, 
and  visited  Italy  and  Sicily  in  1158-9.  In  his  dedication  he  addresses 
Henry  II  in  the  words:  es  in  liber ali  scientia  studiosus. 

2  Facsimiles  of  G,  V,  F  in  Chatelain,  Pal.  pi.  140-2. 

3  Migne,  cxxxvi  391  (Ep.  i  5,  16);  Manitius,  Philol.  xlvii  566  f. 

4  Schaarschmidt,  95. 

5  p.  28  1.  182  Wright.  ‘  Plinium  Calpurniae  succendit  scintilla’. 


630 


QUINTILIAN. 


[CHAP. 


alone  that  were  known  to  Vincent  of  Beauvais1  and  to  Coluccio 
Salutato,  the  first  Italian  who  mentions  the  Letters2.  For  most  of 
the  Correspondence  with  Trajan  we  have  no  mss.  The  Panegyricus 
is  preserved  only  in  mss  of  the  ‘Panegyrici’  copied  from  a  lost  ms 
formerly  at  Mainz  (xv),  and  in  three  leaves  of  a  palimpsest  from 
Bobbio  (vn — vm). 

The  Declamations  (or  Causae)  ascribed  to  Quintilian  are  alone 
mentioned  by  Trebellius  Pollio  and  by  Lactantius. 
There  is  evidence  of  a  recension  c.  500  a.d.  They 
were  abridged  by  Adelard  of  Bath  (1130)3,  and  their  study  lasted 
through  the  Middle  Ages  down  to  the  time  of  Petrarch  (1350)4. 
His  genuine  Institutio  Oratoria  is  described  by  Jerome  as  the 
model  followed  by  Hilary  of  Poitiers  (d.  367),  and  it  was  also 
studied  by  Rufinus  and  Cassiodorus,  by  Julius  Victor  and  Isidore 
of  Seville.  It  was  known  to  Lupus  of  Ferribres  and  Wibald  of 
Corvey5;  to  Bernard  of  Chartres,  to  John  of  Salisbury  and  to 
Peter  of  Blois  (xn),  and,  in  the  next  century,  to  Vincent  of 
Beauvais6.  Meanwhile,  among  the  books  bequeathed  to  the 
abbey  of  Bee  by  Philip  Harcourt,  bishop  of  Bayeux  (1164),  there 
was  a  ms  of  the  Institutio  Oratoria.  This  ms  was  copied  in  the 
same  century  by  the  poet  Etienne  de  Rouen  in  an  abstract  ex¬ 
tending  to  about  a  third  of  the  ten  books  therein  condensed.  This 
abstract  passed  from  Bee  to  the  abbey  of  Saint-Germain-des-Pres, 
and,  under  the  name  of  the  codex  Pratensis  (xn),  it  is  now  in  the 
Paris  Library7.  Harcourt’s  ms,  which  is  now  lost,  was  also  copied 
in  the  codex  Puteanus  (xm)  in  the  same  collection.  The  principal 
mss  fall  into  three  classes: — (1)  represented  only  by  the  First 
Ambrosian  at  Milan  (x — xi),  consisting  of  three-fourths  of  a 
transcript  of  a  complete  ms  which  has  disappeared;  (2)  the  ms  at 
Berne,  formerly  at  Fleury,  which  has  been  copied  in  the  Secotid 

1  Spec.  Hist,  x  c.  67.  The  ms  from  the  Riccardi  palace  was  formerly  in 
the  chapter  library  at  Beauvais. 

2  Plin.  Epp.y  ed.  Keil,  p.  xvi. 

3  Catal.  Bibl.  Leiden  (1716),  p.  383. 

4  Ep.  Fain,  xxiv  7. 

5  Ep.  167  Jaffe,  Mon.  Corb. 

6  Orelli- Baiter,  Cic.  in2  viiif;  Quintil.  I,  ed.  Fierville  (1890)  xiv — xvi. 

7  Fierville,  xxviii  f,  and  facsimile  ad  fin. 


XXXII.] 


QUINTILIAN. 


631 


Ambrosian,  and  an  independent  Paris  ms  of  the  same  class, 
formerly  in  Notre-Dame1,  all  three  belonging  to  century  x,  and 
all  marked  by  many  lacunae  small  or  great;  (3)  the  mixed  mss, 
primarily  represented  by  that  at  Bamberg,  which  consists  of  two 
parts,  the  first  (x)  having  been  copied  from  the  defective  ms  at 
Berne,  and  the  second  from  a  complete  ms  of  class  (1)  now  lost. 
Early  in  century  xi,  while  this  second  part  was  being  added  to  the 
Bamberg  ms,  the  latter  was  itself  copied  in  an  exceptionally 
important  ms,  which  was  taken  to  Cologne2  and  afterwards  to 
DUsseldorf,  and  is  now  in  the  British  Museum  (Harl.  2664 )3.  Of 
this  Harleian  ms  there  are  two  transcripts  of  special  interest,  both 
belonging  to  century  xi.  The  earlier  of  these  is  now  at  Florence, 
the  later  at  Zurich.  The  former  owner  of  the  first,  Werner 
( Werinharius ),  bishop  of  Strassburg  (1001-29),  attended  the 
Council  of  Frankfort  in  1006  and  interested  himself  in  the 
erection  of  the  cathedral  at  Bamberg4.  He  may  thus  have  been 
led  to  acquire  a  transcript  of  the  Cologne  copy  of  the  Bamberg 
ms.  He  certainly  gave  to  the  library  of  Strassburg  Cathedral  in 
or  before  1029  a  ms  of  Quintilian,  which  has  been  identified  as  a 
transcript  of  the  Cologne  ms.  In  1372  this  copy  was  one  of  the 
chained  books  in  the  monastic  dormitory  at  Strassburg;  afterwards 
(with  a  Strassburg  ms  of  Cicero’s  philosophical  works5)  it  found  its 
way  into  the  Medicean  Library  in  Florence,  where  it  is  still  to  be 
seen6.  It  was  supposed  by  Raphael  Regius  (1491) 7  to  be  the 
ms  found  by  Poggio  at  St  Gallen  (1416).  But,  although  Poggio 
made  a  hasty  copy  of  the  ms  at  Constance8,  there  is  nothing  to 
prove  that  he  did  not  return  the  original  to  St  Gallen9.  That 

1  Akin  to  this  is  a  MS  in  the  library  of  St  John’s  Coll.  Camb.  (xm). 
Petrarch’s  copy  (xiv),  now  in  Paris  (7720),  is  a  direct  or  indirect  transcript  of 
the  cod .  Bernensis. 

2  A.  C.  Clark,  in  Neue  Heidelb.  Jahrb.  1891,  p.  238!. 

3  L.  C.  Purser  in  Hermathena ,  1886,  p.  39:  Peterson,  on  Quintil.  x, 
p.  lxiv,  with  facsimile. 

4  Gallia  Christiana ,  v  792-4,  ed.  1731. 

5  San  Marco  257  (in  Laur.). 

6  Laur.  46,  7  (examined  at  Florence).  Facsimile  on  p.  203. 

7  ap.  Bandini,  Cat.  ii  382. 

8  P°ggi°  to  Guarino,  16  Dec.  1416,  haec  mea  manu  transcripsi. 

*  9  Cp.  Reifferscheid,  Rhein.  Mus.  1868,  145. 


632 


NEPOS.  CAESAR. 


[CHAP. 


Historians 

Cornelius 

Nepos. 

Caesar 


original  is  probably  the  slightly  later  copy  of  the  Cologne 
manuscript,  a  copy  which  was  certainly  once  at  St  Gallen  and 
has  been  at  Zurich  since  the  early  part  of  cent.  xvm1.  Some  of 
the  quires  show  Italian  memoranda  giving  the  number  of  lines 
( rige )  contained  in  the  page2. 

Cornelius  Nepos,  Caesar,  Sallust,  Livy,  Suetonius,  Justin  and 
Florus  were  much  studied  in  the  Middle  Ages, 
and  a  special  popularity  attended  the  historical 
anecdotes  of  Valerius  Maximus.  The  history  of 
the  text  of  Cornelius  Nepos  goes  back  to  the  time 
of  Theodosius  II  (d.  450)3.  One  of  the  best  mss,  the  liber 
Danielis  (now  lost),  came  from  a  library  at  or  near  Orleans.  The 
extant  mss  include  the  codex  Gudianus  (xii — xm)  at  Wolfenbiittel, 
and  the  sole  survivor  of  a  better  class  of  mss,  the  ms  at 
Louvain  (xv),  formerly  in  the  neighbouring  Premonstratensian 
abbey  of  Parc4.  Caesar  is  often  quoted  in  the  Gesta  Treverorum. 
In  the  mediaeval  catalogues  (except  in  those  of  France)  he  is  one 
of  the  rarer  authors5.  Among  the  best  mss  now  extant  are  an 
Amsterdam  ms  (ix — x);  two  Paris  mss,  from  Fleury  (ix — x)  and 
Moissac  (xi — xii),  which  are  better  than  the  interpolated  codex 
Thuaneus  (xi — xii);  and  a  Vatican  ms  (x)  corresponding  to  that 
from  Fleury.  Besides  these  there  are  mss  in  the  British  Museum 
and  at  Leyden  (xi),  the  latter  from  Beauvais,  which  is  probably 
the  former  home  of  one  of  the  two  Florence  mss  (xi);  there  are 
also  mss  in  the  Vatican  and  in  Vienna  (xii).  The  writer  of  a 
Pelagian  letter  ( c .  410-30)  protests  against  the  study  of  Virgil, 
Sallust,  Terence  and  Cicero,  et  caeteros  stultitiae  et  perditionis 


1  It  was  regarded  by  Mabillon  (1673),  A.  Germ.  36,  as  the  MS  found  by 
Poggio.  Sabbadini,  Riv.  di  Filol.  xx,  1892,  307^  cites  a  letter  of  Guarino 
to  Poggio  (early  in  1418)  mentioning  a  second  complete  ms  as  in  Poggio’s 
possession,  which  Sabbadini  regards  as  identical  with  the  Florence  MS 
formerly  at  Strassburg,  while  he  does  not  admit  that  the  first  MS  found  by 
Poggio  is  that  at  Zurich.  The  controversy  might  be  settled  by  examining 
codex  Urbinas  577,  which  purports  to  be  a  copy  of  Poggio’s  transcript  of  the 
original. 

2  Letter-press  to  Chatelain’s  pi.  178.  See,  in  general,  Peterson’s  Introd. 
to  Quint.  X,  pp.  lviii— lxxv,  and  lit.  there  quoted. 

3  Traube,  S.  Ber.  Bayr.  A  bad.  1891,  409-25. 

4  On  mediaeval  quotations,  see  Manitius,  Philol.  xlvii  567  f. 

5  Manitius,  Rhein.  Mus.  xlviii ;  Philol.  xlviii  567  f. 


XXXII.] 


SALLUST. 


633 


Sallust 


auctores x;  and  a  school-book  belonging  to  the  latter  part  of  the 
previous  century  contains  quotations  from  each  of  these  four 
writers  in  the  above-mentioned  order1 2 3.  Sallust  was 
imitated  by  Sulpicius  Severus,  and  (together  with 
Virgil  and  Cicero)  by  Ambrose;  and  the  Bellum  Catili?iae%  was 
even  quoted  by  Leo  the  Great4.  The  last  to  study  the  Histories 
at  first-hand  was  Augustine  (d.  425) 5;  later  writers  borrowed  their 
quotations  from  Priscian  and  Isidore;  but  a  new  interest  in 
Sallust  was  awakened  in  century  vm6.  In  the  latter  half  of 
century  x  his  phraseology  is  reproduced  by  Richer  of  Rheims ; 
and  afterwards  by  Ragevinus,  in  his  continuation  (1160)  of  Otto 
of  Freising’s  history  of  Barbarossa7 8.  Among  the  many  mss  of  the 
Bella  are  three  in  Paris  (two  of  cent,  ix,  and  one  of  xi).  A 
lacuna  in  these  has  to  be  supplied  from  later  mss,  including 
several  at  Munich  (xi  etc),  and  a  Paris  ms  (xi)  from  Epternach. 
There  is  also  a  ms  at  St  Gallen  (xi),  and  one  in  Brussels  (xi) 
from  the  church  at  Egmont.  The  Speeches  in  the  Bella  and  in 
the  Histories  are  contained  in  the  Vatican  excerpts  from  Corbie 
(x),  and  fragments  of  the  Histories 8  in  four  leaves  of  a  ms  divided 
between  the  Vatican,  Berlin  and  Orleans  (iv — v),  which  probably 
came  from  Fleury.  The  great  work  of  Livy  was 
originally  in  142  books,  of  which  only  35  (viz. 
books  1 — 10  and  21 — 45)  have  survived.  A 
summary  of  the  contents  of  the  lost  books  is  preserved  in  the 
Periochae ,  best  represented  by  a  ms  at  Heidelberg  (ix),  and  we 
have  direct  quotations  from  or  vague  references  to  the  lost  books 
in  Asconius,  Tacitus,  Frontinus,  in  Plutarch  and  Dion  Cassius; 
in  Servius  and  Censorinus;  and  in  Priscian  and  Cassiodorus; 
also  in  the  Bernese  scholia  on  Lucan.  Thus  the  whole  of  Livy 
appears  to  have  survived  to  the  end  of  the  Roman  Age,  but 


Livy. 

Florus 


1  Caspari,  Briefe  etc.  (1890),  p.  17. 

2  Keil,  Gr.  Lat.  vii  449. 

3  37 >  5>  sicut  in  sentinam  confluxerant. 

4  Senno ,  xvi  4  (Weyman,  in  Philol.  lv  471-3). 

5  Sallust  was  a  favourite  model  with  African  writers  of  cent.  II — v  (Monceau, 
Les  A fricains,  1894,  86 — 90). 

6  Vogel,  Quaest.  Salt.  Erlangen,  1881,  pp.  426-32. 

7  Bursian,  i  76.  He  is  also  imitated  by  Widukind  and  Adam  of  Bremen. 

8  Hauler,  in  Wiener  Sttidien,  1887,  25  f;  ed.  Maurenbrecher,  1891-3. 


634 


LIVY.  SUETONIUS. 


[CHAP. 


the  books  known  to  the  Middle  Ages1  were  the  same  as  those 
known  to  ourselves,  and  the  rumours  of  the  survival  of  a 
complete  Livy  at  some  place  in  the  diocese  of  Liibeck,  which 
were  rife  in  the  times  of  the  Renaissance2,  remained  uncon¬ 
firmed.  The  style  of  Livy  was  imitated  by  Einhard,  and,  with 
greater  freedom,  by  Lambert  of  Hersfeld3.  His  work  was  first 
translated  into  French  by  the  Dominican  Pierre  Berguire  at 
the  request  of  king  John  III  (d.  1341)4.  For  books  of  the 
first  decade  the  earliest  authority,  and  the  only  representative  of 
the  earlier  of  the  two  recensions,  is  the  Verona  palimpsest  of 
books  3 — 6  (v).  All  the  ten  books  were  included  in  the  later 
recension  by  Victorianus,  and  books  3 — 8  were  further  revised 
by  one  or  other  of  the  two  Nicomachi5,  both  of  whom  held 
office  at  Rome  in  431.  This  recension  is  best  represented  by 
the  Medicean  ms  (x — xi)6,  next  to  which  comes  a  ms  from  the 
Colbert  collection  in  Paris  (x),  besides  one  from  Fleury  (ix — x), 
and  others  at  Einsiedeln,  and  in  the  British  Museum  and  the 
Vatican  (x),  and  also  in  Florence  and  Leyden  (xi)7.  Similarly  we 
have  two  recensions  of  the  third  decade ,  one  of  which  is  best 
represented  by  the  Paris  ms,  codex  Puteanus  (v)  from  Corbie,  and 
its  Vatican  copy,  codex  Reginensis  (ix,  c.  804-34)  from  Tours8, 
and  by  a  Florence  ms  (x);  the  other,  by  a  Turin  palimpsest  (v) 
and  by  mss  nearly  related  to  the  lost  ms  of  Speier.  The  text 
of  the  fourth  decade  depends  on  a  Bamberg  ms  (xi)  and  on  the 
recorded  readings  of  the  lost  ms  of  Mainz;  and  that  of  the  first 
five  books  of  the  fifth  decade ,  on  a  Vienna  ms  (v)  from  Lorsch, 
which  in  century  vm  belonged  to  the  bishop  of  a  place  near 
Utrecht.  The  epitome  of  Livy  by  Florus  is  preserved  in  an 
uninterpolated  form  in  a  ms  at  Bamberg  (ix).  Suetonius 
was  successfully  imitated  by  Einhard  (830),  who  was  educated 

1  Manitius,  Philol.  xlviii  570-2. 

2  Voigt,  Humanismus ,  i  247s  f. 

3  Ann.  p.  71  f,  cp.  Liv.  ii  6. 

4  Le  Clerc,  Hist.  Litt.  431,  499. 

5  p.  215  supra.  6  Facsimile  on  p.  236. 

7  On  the  Medicean  ms,  and  the  Leyden  ms  L,  see  Proc.  Camb.  Philol.  Soc. 
30  Oct.  1902. 

8  Chatelain,  in  Rev.  de  Philol.  xiv  (1890)  78  f ;  Pallographie,  pi.  cxvif; 
Traube,  S.  Ber.  Bayr.  A  had.  1891,  425  f. 


XXXII.]  VAL.  MAXIMUS.  VEGETIUS.  JUSTIN. 


635 


at  Fulda.  Servatus  Lupus,  who  could  find  no  ms  of  Sue¬ 
tonius  in  France,  borrowed  the  Fulda  ms  (c.  850), 
and  at  the  close  of  the  same  century  a  ms  of  Suetonius. 

J  _  Val.  Maximus. 

Suetonius  was  copied  at  Tours,  which  still  exists  Vegetius. 
in  Paris  under  the  name  of  the  codex  Memmianus  QUScurtius 

(ix) ,  the  best  that  has  come  down  to  us.  While 

Eric  of  Auxerre  made  extracts  from  Suetonius  and  Valerius 
Maximus  at  the  suggestion  of  Servatus  Lupus,  Sedulius  of  Liege 
had  already  been  culling  excerpts  from  Valerius  and  Vegetius1. 
Valerius  is  represented  by  mss  at  Berne  (ix)  and  Florence  (x),  the 
former  from  Fleury,  the  latter  from  the  abbey  of  Malmedy- 
Stavelot  near  Liege2;  also  by  the  Vatican  ms  (ix)  of  the  abridge¬ 
ment  by  Julius  Paris  (late  iv).  This  ms  of  the  abridgement, 
which  came  from  Fleury,  and  the  Berne  ms  of  the  original  belong 
to  a  Ravenna  recension  by  Domnulus  (v)3.  Vegetius,  De  Re 
Mi/itari,  was  much  studied  during  the  wars  of  the  ninth  century. 
An  abridged  excerpt  of  part  of  the  work  was  made  by  Rabanus 
Maurus,  and  a  set  of  elegiacs  was  written  by  Sedulius  to 
accompany  the  gift  of  a  ms  from  bishop  Hartgarius  to 
Eberhardus'1.  The  extant  mss  fall  into  two  classes,  best 
represented  by  a  ms  in  Paris  and  a  Palatine  ms  in  the  Vatican 

(x) ,  the  former  belonging  to  the  recension  of  Eutropius  (450). 
The  mss  of  Justin,  who  was  a  favourite  model  for  historical 
composition5,  similarly  fall  into  two  groups,  the  first  represented 
only  by  a  ms  in  Florence  (xi),  the  second  including  a  ms  at 
St  Gallen  (ix — x),  a  St  Denis  ms  in  Paris  (ix),  and  a  Fleury  ms 
at  Leyden  (ix — x).  Quintus  Curtius,  the  imitator  of  Livy  and 
Seneca,  was  studied  by  Einhard  and  Servatus  Lupus  and  others 
in  the  Middle  Ages6.  The  earlier  mss  (ix — xi)  include  those 
in  Leyden  (ix,  x),  Paris  and  Berne  (ix)  and  fragments  at 
Einsiedeln  (x). 

1  ms  C  14  at  Cues  on  the  Mosel  (including  fragments  of  Cic.  in  Pisonem 
and  pro  Fonteio).  Cp.  Traube,  Abhandl.  Bayr.  Akad.  1892,  366-72. 

2  Cp.  Wibald  (of  Stavelot  and  Corvey),  c.  1150,  in  Bibl.  Rer.  Germ,  i  280. 

3  Brandes,  Wiener  Studien ,  1890,  297  f;  Traube,  S.  Ber.  Bayr.  Akad. 
1891,  387—400. 

4  Poetae  Lat.  Aevi  Car.  iii  212  Traube. 

5  F.  Rtihl,  Die  Verbreitung  des  Justins  im  MA  (1871). 

6  Dosson,  Etude,  360. 


636 


TACITUS. 


[CHAP. 


In  the  mediaeval  catalogues  there  is  no  certain  trace  of  Tacitus. 

Reminiscences  of  the  Germania  and  the  Histories 
have  been  detected  in  Einhard,  and  of  the  Annals 
in  a  single  passage  of  Rudolf’s  annals  of  Fulda  (852)1,  while  the 
Germania  is  the  source  of  the  same  writer’s  description  of  the 
Saxons2,  and  of  the  epigram  in  Guibert  of  Nogent  (d.  1124): — 
modernitm  hoc  saeculum  corrumpitur  et  corrumpit 3.  William  of 
Malmesbury  supplies  a  remarkably  close  parallel  to  a  passage  in 
the  Histories 4,  and  Peter  of  Blois  professes  to  have  frequently 
referred  to  that  work5.  Books  i — vi  of  the  Annals  have  survived 
only  in  the  Medicean  ms  (ix),  found  in  15096  and  supposed  to 
have  come  from  one  of  the  monasteries  of  Northern  Germany, 
either  Corvey7  or  Fulda8,  or  possibly  Liibeck9;  A?mals  xi — xvi 
and  Histories  i — v,  solely  in  another  Medicean  ms  (xi),  ‘found’  in 
1427,  which  is  written  in  ‘Lombard’  characters  and  was  possibly 
copied  at  Monte  Casino10.  The  extant  mss  of  the  Dialogus , 

1  Pertz,  Mon.  i  368,  super  amnem  quem  Cornelius  Tacitus  [Ann.  ii  9 — 17] 
scriptor  rerum  a  Romanis  in  ea  gente  gestarum  Visurgim,  moderni  vero 
Wisahara  vocant. 

2  Mon.  ii  675  f  [Germ.  4,  5,  10,  11]. 

3  Migne,  clvi  858  (G.  Meier’s  Sieben  Freiert  Kiinste ,  i  19);  Tac.  Germ.  19, 
nec  corrumpere  et  corrumpi  saeculum  vocatur. 

4  ii  73,  vix  credibile  memoratu  est  quantum... adoleverit ;  cp.  Gesta  Regum 
Angl.  c.  68,  incredibile  quantum  brevi  adoleverit  (Manitius,  Philol.  xlvii  566). 
Apart,  however,  from  adoleverit ,  both  historians  may  have  been  imitating 
Sallust,  Cat.  7,  incredibile  memoratu  est. ..quantum  brevi  creverit;  and  even 
brevi  adoleverit  may  have  been  suggested  to  the  English  historian  by  Sallust, 
who  has  brevi  adolevit  ‘m  Jug.  11  and  63. 

5  Chartul.  Univ.  Paris.,  i  27  f.  Cp.,  in  general,  E.  Cornelius,  Quomodo 
Tacitus... in  hominum  memoria  versatus  sit  usque  ad  renascentes  litteras  (1888), 
where  Widukind  and  the  author  of  the  Life  of  Henry  IV  are  credited  with  a 
knowledge  of  Tacitus;  also  Manitius,  Philol.  xlvii  565  f. 

6  Soderini  Ep .,  quoted  by  Urlichs,  Eos,  i  244. 

7  Ep.  Leonis  X,  1  Dec.  1517;  Tac.,  ed.  Beatus  Rhenanus  1533;  Philol. 
xlv  376-80;  Hiiffer,  Korveier  Studien,  1898,  14. 

8  Tac.  ed.  Ritter,  p.  xxxviif ;  refuted  by  Urlichs,  Eos,  i  243  f,  ii  224  f. 

9  Voigt,  Humanistnus ,  i  253s ;  corrected  in  Neue  Jahrb.  1881,  423,  805, 
and  in  Curtius-Aufsatze ,  333. 

10  Chron.  Cass,  iii  63;  possibly  copied  c.  1053-87  in  the  time  of  Desiderius. 
The  MS  was  probably  known  to  Boccaccio  (d.  1375),  cp.  Rhein.  Mus.  1848, 
145,  and  Voigt,  i  2503;  complete  facsimile  of  both  MSS,  Leyden,  1902. 


XXXII.] 


PETR0N1US. 


637 


Germania ,  and  Agricola  are  all  of  century  xv,  with  the  exception 
of  a  ms  of  the  Agricola  and  Germania  recently  discovered  in  a 
private  library  at  Jesi  near  Ancona,  which  belongs  to  century  xn1. 
The  poem  on  the  Civil  War  contained  in  the 

.  Petronius 

Satires  of  Petronius  (§§  1 19—124)  was  known  to 
Eric  of  Auxerre2.  It  is  possibly  Eric’s  ms  of  excerpts  from  the 
Satires  that  was  once  at  Auxerre3  and  is  now  at  Berne  (ix — x). 
Two  leaves  at  Leyden  belong  to  the  same  ms.  There  are  also 
two  mss  in  Paris  (xn,  xv),  the  second  of  which  (the  only  authority 
for  the  Cena  Trimalchionis)  was  found  at  Trau  in  Dalmatia. 
Fuller  excerpts  than  those  in  the  Berne  ms  were  copied  by 
Scaliger,  Tornaesius  and  Pithoeus  from  mss  which  have  since 
vanished. 

A  favourable  impression  of  the  extent  to  which  the  ancient 
historians  were  sometimes  studied  is  supplied  by  Radulfus  de 
Diceto,  dean  of  St  Paul’s  (d.  1202)4,  who  gives  a  dated  list  of  the 
historical  authorities  followed  in  his  Abbreviationes  Chronicorum, 
beginning  with  ‘Trogus  Pompeius’  and  Valerius  Maximus,  while 
he  quotes,  in  his  own  work,  authors  such  as  Caesar,  Suetonius, 
Solinus,  Florus,  Apuleius,  Virgil,  Lucan,  Martial,  Statius,  Claudian 
and  Vegetius5.  But,  in  the  Middle  Ages  as  a  whole,  we  find  an 
ignorance  of  ancient  history  in  general,  and  even  of  the  history  of 
philosophy  and  literature.  Historical  studies  were  entangled  with 
strange  versions  of  the  tale  of  Troy  and  fabulous  stories  of 
Alexander  the  Great6,  while  the  wildest  legends  gathered  round 
the  names  of  Aristotle7  and  Virgil8.  The  fables  of  mythology, 
again,  were  either  denounced  as  diabolical  inventions  or  forced 
to  minister  to  edification  with  the  aid  of  allegory.  The  direct 

1  Wochenschr.  f.  kl.  Philol.  1903,  83,  163. 

2  Vita  S.  Germani,  i  109 — 1 13,  v  207,  229 ;  cp.  Traube’s  Poetae Latini,  iii  424. 

3  Usener,  in  Rhein.  Mus.  xxii  (1867)  4 13  f ;  not  in  Eric’s  hand,  says  Traube, 
iii  822. 

4  ed.  Stubbs  (1876). 

5  Gottlieb,  Mitt.  Bibl. ,  p.  447  f. 

6  P.  Meyer,  Bibl.  fran$.  dn  Moyen  Age,  t.  iv — v;  Gaston  Paris,  Litt.  Fr. 
au  Moyen  Age ,  §  44 ;  H.  Morley,  English  Writers,  iii  286 — 303. 

7  Gidel,  Nouvelles  Etudes,  331 — 384;  Hertz,  Abhandl.  Bayr.  Akad.  1892, 

1 — 104. 

8  Comparetti,  Virgilio  ii. 


638 


MEDIAEVAL  ENCYCLOPAEDIAS. 


[CHAP. 


Grammar 


study  of  classical  authors  was  largely  superseded  by  the  use  of 
encyclopaedic  compilations1,  such  as  those  of  Isidore  and 
Rabanus,  of  William  de  Conches  and  Honorius  d’Autun,  the 
Floridum  of  Lambert  (c.  1120),  the  Imago  Mundi  of  Omons 
(1245)2,  the  Specula  of  Vincent  of  Beauvais  (d.  1264),  and  the 
nineteen  books  De  proprietatibus  rerum  of  the  English  Franciscan, 
Bartholomew  (fl.  1230-50),  whose  knowledge  of  Geography  is 
derived  solely  from  the  Bible  and  from  Pliny,  Orosius  and 
Isidore,  with  the  commentaries  on  the  same.  His  quotations 
from  Aristotle  are  always  taken  from  the  Latin  translations  of  the 
Arabic  versions3.  The  Reductorium  Morale  of  Pierre  Berguire 

(d.  1362)  was  of  the  same  encyclopaedic  type  as  the  above 

productions4. 

The  classical  learning  of  the  Middle  Ages  was  largely  derived 
second-hand,  not  only  from  comprehensive  en¬ 
cyclopaedias,  but  also  from  books  of  elegant 

extracts  or  florilegia;  and,  even  if  the  student  never  attained  to 
the  reading  of  the  authors  themselves,  he  at  least  went  through  a 
protracted  course  of  Latin  Grammar.  Early  in  the  Middle  Ages 
the  vast  compilation  of  Priscian  was  succeeded  by  the  minor 
manuals  of  Cassiodorus  and  Isidore,  of  Aldhelm  and  Bede.  All 
of  these  treated  Grammar  in  a  sober  and  serious  spirit;  it  was 
reserved  for  the  eccentric  sciolist,  who  called  himself  ‘Virgilius 
Maro’  (cent,  vi — vn),  to  invent  new  words  at  his  own  caprice5, 
and  to  justify  their  existence  by  fabricating  quotations  which 
imposed  upon  his  successors.  After  the  eighth  century  the 
history  of  Grammar  falls  into  two  periods,  (1)  from  the  age  of 
Alcuin  to  that  of  Abelard  (centuries  ix — xi),  and  (2)  from  the 
age  of  Abelard  to  the  Renaissance  (centuries  xn — xiv).  In  the 
first  period  the  authorities  mainly  followed  are  Donatus  and 
Priscian.  The  few  examples  of  texts  quoted  in  illustration  of 


1  Haase,  De  Medii  Aevi  Studiis  Philol. ,  pp.  4 — 6;  Liliencron’s  Festrede 
(1876);  and  Norden,  740  note  1. 

2  In  French  verse,  Notices  et  Extraits ,  v  243-66. 

3  Hist.  An.,  Meteor .,  De  Caelo  et  Mundo ;  Jourdain,  359.  The  original 
Latin  of  Bartholomew  was  printed  in  1470-2,  and  Trevisa’s  English  version 
(of  1398)  in  1495  etc.  Extracts  are  given  in  Steele’s  Mediaeval  Lore  (1893). 

4  Hallam,  Lit.  i  H7-94;  Bibl.  de  Vecole  des  chartes,  xxxii  325  f ;  Haureau, 

Mem.  de  PAcad.  des  Inscr.  xxx  (2)  45 — 55.  5  Cp.  p.  438  supra. 


XXXII.]  GRAMMAR  IN  THE  MIDDLE  AGES. 


639 


grammatical  rules  are  all  borrowed  from  earlier  grammars.  Little 
of  Greek  is  known  except  the  letters;  but,  in  the  mss  of  writers 
on  grammar,  while  the  orthography  of  Greek  words  is  in  general 
correct  (the  words  being  written  in  capitals,  and  without  accents), 
there  is  no  knowledge  of  Greek  Accidence.  Donatus  has  in  the 
meantime  been  converted  into  a  catechism  (. Donatus  minor),  and 
the  most  popular  text-book  is  the  commentary  on  that  catechism 
by  Remigius  of  Auxerre  (d.  908) l.  A  superstitious  respect  for  a 
standard  grammatical  text,  an  ignorance  of  Greek  and  of  classical 
antiquity  in  general,  a  disposition  to  reason  about  grammatical 
facts  instead  of  studying  the  facts  themselves,  a  preference  for 
ecclesiastical  as  compared  with  classical  usage,  are  among  the 
main  characteristics  of  the  first  period.  All  these  reappear  in  an 
exaggerated  form  in  the  second;  but,  in  the  latter,  we  find  Logic 
intruding  into  the  sphere  of  Grammar,  asserting  itself  first  in  the 
early  part  of  the  twelfth  century  and  still  more  strongly  in  the 
thirteenth2.  While  the  study  of  Logic  is  diffused  over  all  Europe, 
the  general  trend  of  grammatical  studies  in  Italy  and  in  France, 
South  of  the  Loire,  is  different  from  that  North  of  that  river 
and  in  lands  under  the  educational  influence  of  Northern  France, 
such  as  England,  Flanders  and  Germany.  In  Italy  and  in 
Southern  France  the  study  of  Logic,  combined  with  that  of 
Grammar,  is  subordinate  to  that  of  Law;  and  Grammar  is 
cultivated  solely  for  the  practical  purpose  of  enabling  the  student 
to  speak  and  write  Latin  with  correctness.  The  most  popular 
lexicons  of  the  Middle  Ages  were  produced  by  Italians.  Papias3 

1  p.  478  n.  4  supra. 

~  ‘  Cupio  per  auxilium  dialecticae  grammaticam  adiuvare  the  student’s 
reply  to  Buoncompagno’s  warning  against  the  neglect  of  Grammar  (cent.  Xli), 
cp.  Thurot,  Notices  et  Extraits ,  xxii  90.  The  following  comparison  is  ascribed 
to  Albertus  Magnus  (cent,  xm):  ‘  sicut  se  habet  stultus  ad  sapientem,  sic  se 
habet  grammaticus  ignorans  logicam  ad  peritum  in  logica’.  The  glosa  notabilis 
on  Alexander  of  Villedieu  by  Gerhard  of  Zutphen  (Cologne,  1488)  applies  all 
the  precision  of  Scholasticism  to  points  of  Syntax  (Alexander,  ed.  Reichling, 
pp.  xii,  lxivf). 

3  p.  50  r  supra ;  Littre  on  Glossaires  in  Hist.  Litt.  de  la  France ,  xxii  (1852) 
5 — 8;  Rhein.  Mus.  xxiv  (1869)  378,  390;  Teuffel,  §  42,  6 — 9,  and  §  472,  7. 
The  principal  source  of  Papias  is  the  anonymous  liber  glossarum  (cent,  vm — 
ix),  partly  derived  from  Placidus  (cent,  v  ?). 


640 


MEDIAEVAL  GRAMMARIANS. 


[CHAP. 


(1053)  is  a  Lombard;  Hugutio1  (fi.  1192,  d.  1212)  and  Balbi2 
(1286)  are  of  Pisa  and  Genoa  respectively.  The  biblical  glossary 
called  the  Manunotrectus  (/xafxfxoOpe-TrToq)  is  ascribed  to  M.archesini 
of  Reggio  (c.  1300). 

In  the  second  period  the  chief  authorities  on  Grammar  are 
men  of  Northern  Europe  who  have  studied  in  Paris.  Petrus 
Helias,  the  author  of  a  commentary  on  Priscian,  is  a  Frenchman 
who  taught  in  Paris  ( c. .  1142).  Alexander  of  Villedieu,  the 
composer  of  a  hexameter  poem,  in  2645  lines,  on  (1)  Accidence, 
(2)  Syntax,  and  (3)  Prosody,  Accentuation  and  Figures  of  Speech, 
compiled  from  Priscian,  Donatus,  Petrus  Riga,  and  possibly  also 
from  unknown  grammarians  of  the  twelfth  century,  is  a  native  of 
Normandy  (1200)3.  Flanders  is  the  native  land  of  his  con¬ 
temporary,  Eberhard  of  Bethune  (1212),  the  author  of  a  poem  on 
Grammar,  written  in  hexameters  interspersed  with  elegiacs,  which 
owes  its  name  of  Graecismus  to  the  fact  that  it  includes  a  chapter 
on  derivations  from  the  Greek4.  Flanders  also  claims  Michael 

1  Of  Papias  and  Hugutio  Roger  Bacon  said,  nesciverunt  Graecum ;  see 
p.  535  ;  Ducange,  Praef.  §§  44,  46 ;  Haase,  De  Medii  Aevi  Sludiis  Philologicis, 
31-3;  Charles,  Roger  Bacon,  330,  359.  Cp.  A.  Scheler,  Lexicogr.  Lat.  (1867); 
S.  Berger,  De glossariis... medii  aevi  (Paris,  1879);  Salvioli  in  Rivista  Europea , 
xiv  (1880)  745  f;  G.  Meier,  Die  Sieben  Freien  Kunste,\  17;  and  Eckstein,  Lat. 
u.  Gr.  Unterricht  (1887)  53  f.  Hugutio,  s.  v.  cera,  after  showing  that  the 
second  syllable  of  sincerus  is  long,  severely  adds  that,  if  in  any  verse  that 
syllable  is  made  short,  abradatur  cum  suo  auctore  de  libro  vitae  et  cum  justis 
non  scribatur.  For  sinceris ,  cp.  Charisius  in  Keil’s  Gr.  Lat.  i  81,  218; 
Hagen,  Anecd.  Helv.  ccl;  and  Eberhard,  Graecismus  (c.  xiii),  71 — 4. 

2  On  Balbi  ( Joannes  Januensis ),  see  p.  584  supra ;  Ducange,  §  47;  and 
Haase,  34  b  He  explains  laicus  ‘i.e.  popularis,  et  dicitur  a  laos,  quod  est 
populus ,  vel  potius  a  laos,  quod  est  lapis  \  inde  laicus  est  lapideus ,  quia  durus 
et  extraneus  est  a  scientia  literarum  ’.  Hugutio  and  Balbi  are  among  the 
sources  of  the  Promptorium  Parvulorum  (1440),  ascribed  to  the  Dominican 
Geoffrey  of  Lynn. 

3  ed.  Reichling  in  Mon.  Gernn.  Paed.  xn  (1893),  date,  p.  xxxvif;  authorities, 
pp.  lxxvi-ix;  250  mss  (1259 — 1526),  and  c.  300  printed  editions  (1470 — 1588). 
Cp.  Haase,  17,  45  (where  the  clearness  of  his  Syntax  is  commended);  Babler, 
Beitrdge  zu  einer  Gesch.  d.  Lat.  Gr.  im  MA,  n6f;  and  Neudecker,  Das 
Doctrinale  (Pima,  1885).  Alexander  is  mentioned  in  the  Epp.  Obscurorum 
Virorum ,  i  Epp.  7,  25,  ii  Ep.  35. 

4  ed.  Wrobel  (1887);  cp.  Babler,  95  f;  Norden,  Kunstprosa ,  741  n.  His 
date  (1212  Leyser,  Ducange,  Reichling)  rests  on  the  somewhat  ambiguous 


XXXII.] 


MEDIAEVAL  GRAMMARIANS. 


641 


‘Modista’  of  Marbais  (cent,  xm),  the  writer  of  a  treatise  De  Modis 
Significandi ,  who  actually  invokes  the  authority  of  Aristotle  for  the 
simple  statement  that  one  cannot  give  to  another  that  which  one 
has  not  got  oneself1.  Lastly,  we  find  two  Englishmen,  the  first 
of  whom  is  Joannes  de  Garlandia  (fl.  1204-52),  who  was  known 
to  Roger  Bacon2,  and  left  behind  him  about  fourteen  works  on 
Latin  Grammar  and  cognate  subjects3.  The  second  is  Robert 
Kilwardby,  archbishop  of  Canterbury  (1272-9),  who  was  a  Master 
of  Arts  of  Paris  and  famous  as  a  commentator  on  Priscian4.  In 
the  thirteenth  century  Priscian  was  compelled  to  share  the  place 
of  honour  with  his  commentators  Helias  and  Kilwardby,  while 
in  the  fourteenth  he  was  practically  superseded  by  the  modern 
compilations  of  Alexander  of  Villedieu  and  Eberhard  of  Bethune5. 
These  last  owed  much  of  their  popularity  to  the  fact  that  they 
were  written  in  Latin  verse.  Verse  was  also  the  medium  used 
by  a  Canon  of  Hildesheim,  Ludolf  of  Luchow,  for  his  treatise  on 
Syntax  known  as  Florista ,  beginning  with  ‘Flores  grammaticae 
propono  scribere’,  which  was  widely  used  in  Germany,  Flanders 
and  France6.  Even  in  the  prose  grammars  of  the  previous 
century  the  principal  rules  had  always  been  given  in  verse,  as 
an  aid  to  the  memory.  In  this  second  period  any  Greek  words 
that  occur  in  the  mss  of  the  grammarians  are  mechanically  copied, 
and  are  often  wrongly  read  and  erroneously  explained.  Latin 
Grammar  ceases  to  be  cultivated  as  the  art  of  speaking  and 
writing  Latin  with  correctness.  It  has  now  become  a  purely 
speculative  science. 

lines :  *  anno  milleno  centeno  bis  duodeno  |  condidit  Ebrardus  Graecismum 
Bethuniensis ’.  Haase  (45)  incorrectly  interpreted  this  as  1124.  On  his 
ignorance  of  Greek,  cp.  ib.  15.  He  fills  60  folios  of  the  ‘Canterbury  lesson- 
book’  (c.  14S0)  described  in  Gasquet’s  Essays,  279.  Conrad  von  Mure 
produced  a  Novus  Graecismus  at  Zurich  (1281),  cp.  Bursian,  i  84  f. 

1  Thurot,  1 18  n.  2.  2  Conip.  Phil.  453  ;  p.  572  supra. 

3  p.  529  n.  1  supra',  and  Babler,  172,  175-8.  • 

4  Comm,  on  Books  i — xv  in  Camb.  Univ.  Library,  MS  Kk.  3.  20. 

5  Chartul.  Univ.  Paris.,  iii  145. 

6  Florista,  Papias,  Hugutio,  Michael  Modista,  and  Joannes  de  Garlandia 
are  all  satirised  by  Erasmus  in  his  Conjlictus  Thaliae,  Act.  ii  Opera  i  892 ; 
cp.  Rabelais  i  14  [Journ.  of  Cl.  and  S.  Phil,  iv  6  note);  also  Erasmus,  Epp. 
2,  79,  507,  810,  and  394  (Gudanus  to  Battus),  ed.  Leyden. 

S. 


41 


642 


MEDIAEVAL  LATIN. 


[CHAP. 


Modern  Syntax  owes  much  to  the  grammarians  of  the  Middle 
Ages.  In  the  thirteenth  century  a  complete  system  of  philo¬ 
sophical  grammar  was  composed,  which  was  destined  to  hold  its 
ground  in  the  schools  for  two  centuries.  The  work  in  which 
this  philosophy  of  grammar  was  first  laid  down  was  entitled 
De  Modis  Significandi ,  and  its  teachers  were  called  Modistae. 
It  has  been  variously  attributed  to  Thomas  Aquinas  or  Thomas 
of  Erfurt  or  Duns  Scotus  in  century  xm1,  and  even  to  Albert 
tne  Saxon  in  the  following  century.  It  was  the  theme  of 
several  commentaries,  and  of  manuals  such  as  that  of  Michael 
de  Marbais  already  mentioned.  These  manuals  were  denounced 
by  the  early  humanists  because  of  the  barbarous  character  of 
their  Latinity,  the  inordinate  number  of  their  definitions,  and 
the  extreme  subtlety  of  their  distinctions2;  but  much  that  was 
useful  in  them  was  incorporated  in  the  new  text-books3. 

The  grammarians  of  the  Middle  Ages  dealt  with  Latin  as 
the  living  language  of  the  Church  and  the  Schools,  and  it  was 
precisely  because  it  was  a  living  language  that  it  departed 
further  and  further  from  the  classical  standard.  Founded  on 
the  Vulgate  and  the  Fathers,  it  enlarged  its  vocabulary  by 
incorporating  names  of  things  unknown  to  the  ancients,  together 
with  technical  terms  of  the  Schools,  whether  invented  by  the 
Schoolmen  or  the  Grammarians.  We  owe  ‘  instance 5  to  the 
former,  and  ‘substantive’  (in  the  ordinary  sense,  different  from 
that  of  Priscian)  to  the  latter4.  It  is  open  to  Seneca5  to  complain 
that  he  cannot  translate  to  6V  except  by  quod  est ,  but  Thomas 
Aquinas  and  Duns  Scotus  would  have  felt  no  such  difficulty, 
and  Quintilian6  would  not  have  condemned  them  for  using  ens 
or  essentia.  ‘  If  fear  ’  (says  Priscian7)  ‘  had  prevented  authors  from 
using  any  new  words,  which  were  necessarily  demanded  either  by 

1  P-  577  supra. 

2  e.g.  Erasmus,  in  his  Antibarbarus ,  calls  Michael  an  autor  insulsissimus. 

3  Haase,  38 — 42,  44!;  Reichling’s  ed.  of  Alexander,  pp.  cvi — cx. 

4  instantia  used  for  Zvctolgis  in  Buridan,  in  Metaph.  Arist.  Quaestiones 
(Prantl,  iv  35);  in  the  secondary  sense  of  ‘example’,  not  found  in  English 
earlier  than  1586.  verbimi  (not  nomen )  substantivum  is  normal  in  Priscian. 

5  Ep.  58  §  7.  6  viii  3,  33. 

7  viii  92;  cp.  Paulsen,  Gesch.  des  gelehrten  Unterrichts ,  27;  Reichling,  l.c. 
iv — vi. 


XXXII.] 


THE  ARTS  AND  THE  AUTHORS. 


643 


the  nature  of  things  or  by  the  desire  of  expressing  a  certain 
meaning,  perpetuis  Latinitas  angustiis  damnata  mansissef.  Among 
changes  of  Syntax,  the  commonest  are  the  use  of  quod  or  quia , 
instead  of  the  Accusative  with  the  Infinitive ;  fore,  for  esse,  with 
the  Future  Participle ;  the  Accusative  for  the  Ablative  Absolute ; 
and  quatenus  in  the  ‘  final  ’  sense  of  ut.  Even  Grammarians 
gravely  endeavour  to  maintain  the  legitimacy  of  the  constructions 
legitur  Virgilium 1  and  sillogizantem  ponendum  est  terminos 2.  The 
scholastic  Latin  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries  degenerates 
in  the  fourteenth ;  and  this  degeneracy  was  doubtless  accelerated 
by  the  uncouth  style  of  the  renderings  of  Aristotle  which  began 
to  be  common  in  the  thirteenth  century3. 

Grammar  was  the  portal  of  all  the  Liberal  Arts;  the  latter 
could  only  be  approached  through  the  study  of 
the  ‘  parts  of  speech  ’ : — qui  nescit  partes ,  in  vanum 
tendit  ad  artes 4.  But  it  was  only  one  of  the  Seven 
Arts  constituting  the  normal  course  of  mediaeval 
study.  Combined  with  Logic  and  Rhetoric,  it  formed  the 
trivium,  with  which  ordinary  students  were  generally  content. 
In  the  case  of  the  more  advanced,  the  study  of  these  three  Arts, 
was  followed  by  that  of  the  quadrivium ,  consisting  of  Music,. 
Arithmetic,  Geometry  and  Astronomy5.  The  late  Latin  couplet 


The  conflict 
between  the 
Arts  and  the 
Authors 


1  *  There-is-a-reading-of  Virgil  ’.  Thurot,  302  f.  2  ib.  307  f. 

3  Cp.  C.  Thurot,  Doctrines  Grammaticales  au  Moyen  Age ,  in  Notices  et 
Exlraits ,  xxii  2  (1868)  pp.  591,  esp.  60 — 121,  500-6;  and  V.  Le  Clerc,  Hist. 
Litt.  de  la  France  au  ip  s.  (1865),  420  f,  426!;  also  F.  Haase,  De  Medii  Aevi 
Studiis  Philologicis  (Breslau,  1856),  and  Vorlesungen  (1874),  i  12 — T4 ; 
Specht,  Gesch.  des  Unterrichtswesens  (1885),  86 — 96;  Eckstein,  Lat.  u.  Gr. 
Unterricht  (1887),  54!;  Schmid,  Gesch.  der  Erziehung,  11  i  (1892)  299,  439; 
and  Salvioli,  in  Rivista  Europea ,  xiv  732  f.  The  study  and  use  of  Latin  in 
Germany  is  treated  by  Jakob  Burckhard,  De  linguae  latinae  in  G er mania... fatis 
(2  vols,  1713,  Suppl.  1721).  On  mediaeval  Grammar,  cp.  Babler’s  Beitrdge 
(1:885). 

4  ‘Metrista’  (Haase,  44);  Buoncompagno  (ap.  Thurot,  90),  qui  partes 
ignorat,  se  ad  artes  transferre  non  debet.  A  woodcut  in  Reisch,  Margarita 
Philosophica  (1504),  copied  in  Reicke,  Der  Gelehrte  (1900),  Abb.  43,  exhibits 
Grammar  opening  the  gate  of  a  tower  with  representatives  of  the  Arts  looking 
out  of  the  windows  in  the  successive  storeys,  and  with  that  of  Theology  on  the 
summit. 

5  See  esp.  G.  Meier,  Die  Sieben  Freien  Kiinste  im  MA,  Einsiedeln, 
1886-7  »  also  Schmid,  /.  c.  II  i  439 — 448  ;  and  Specht,  /.  c.  81 — 139. 


41 — 2 


644 


THE  ARTS  AND  THE  AUTHORS. 


[CHAP. 


h. 


>  *  it  t-'V > 


'  ■*  O 

(XAZ-x  ontw+n' 


summing  up  the  Seven  Arts  in  two  memorial  lines  corresponding 
to  these  divisions  is  well  known  to  many  who  may  not  have 
heard  the  name  of  its  author,  or  rather  its  earliest  recorder1: — 

‘  Gram  loquitur  ;  Dia  vera  docet ;  Rhet  verba  colorat ; 

Mus  canit ;  Ar  numerat ;  Ge  ponderat ;  Ast  colit  astra  \ 

The  Middle  Ages  were  the  battle-ground  of  a  struggle  between 
the  study  of  the  Liberal  Arts,  as  represented  in  meagre  manuals 
like  that  of  Martianus  Capella,  and  the  study  of  the  classical 
authors  themselves.  The  study  of  the  Arts  was  regarded  as 
subservient  not  only  to  the  study  of  the  Scriptures2,  but  also  to 
that  of  theoretic  Theology ;  and,  in  a  work  of  art  belonging  to  the 
close  of  the  Middle  Ages,  a  fresco  of  the  Spanish  Chapel  in 
Florence  ( c .  1355),  we  may  see  Thomas  Aquinas  enthroned 
among  the  Prophets  and  Evangelists,  while,  in  a  lower  row,  a 
subordinate  position  is  assigned  to  the  personifications  and  the 
representatives  of  the  Liberal  Arts.  But  the  study  of  the  Arts, 
though  subordinate  to  that  of  the  Scriptures,  was  deemed  far  more 
important  than  that  of  the  Authors.  In  comparison  with  the 
latter,  the  text-books  of  the  Arts  in  general,  and  of  Logic  in 
particular,  were  considered  safer  reading :  a  syllogism  might 
possibly  involve  a  fallacy,  but  it  was  at  any  rate  free  from  the 
taint  of  paganism3.  From  the  first  part  of  the  eleventh  century, 
the  influence  of  the  Schoolmen  made  the  schools  of  Paris  the 
stronghold  of  the  study  of  Logic ;  and,  at  the  beginning  of  the 
thirteenth,  we  find  the  earliest  statute  of  the  u?iiversity  of  Paris 
insisting  on  the  study  of  Plato  and  Aristotle  alone,  to  the  neglect 
of  a  general  classical  education4.  Meanwhile,  in  the  twelfth,  the 
interest  in  the  Classics  still  survived  at  Chartres  during  the 
three  years  (1137-40)  in  which  John  of  Salisbury  was  studying 
there,  under  one  of  Bernard’s  pupils,  William  of  Conches,  and 
Richard  l’Eveque.  Bernard  had  been  succeeded  as  chancellor 

1  The  Franciscan  Scotist,  Nicolaus  de  Orbellis  ( Dorbellus ),  d.  1455  J  born 
and  died  at  Angers;  lived  chiefly  at  Poitiers.  Logica,  f.  3;  Prantl,  iv  175. 

2  Alcuin,  ci  853  Migne  ;  Abelard,  ii  67  Cousin;  John  of  Salisbury,  Enth. 
373  f,  441-5,  etc.  (Norden,  Kunstprosa ,  680-4). 

3  Cp.  Rashdall,  i  36.  The  mystic  Hugo  of  St  Victor  (d.  1141)  regards  the 
Authors  as  a  mere  ‘appendix’  to  the  Arts ,  describing  the  former  as  ludicra , 
and  the  latter  as  seria,  Migne  clxxvi  768  (Norden,  688  f). 

4  ib.  i  71  f. 


XXXII.] 


THE  SCHOOL  OF  CHARTRES. 


645 


by  Gilbert  de  la  Porree  (1126)  and  ultimately  by  Bernard’s 
brother  Theodoric  (1141 — c.  1 150-5),  who  composed  {c.  1141)  a 
great  work  on  the  Seven  liberal  Arts,  treating  each  of  them  in 
connexion  with  ancient  or  modern  text-books.  For  Grammar 
he  quotes  Donatus  and  Priscian;  for 
Dialectic,  Aristotle  and  Boethius ;  for 
Rhetoric,  Cicero ;  for  Music  and  Arith¬ 
metic,  Boethius  ;  for  Geometry,  Adelard 
of  Bath  (the  translator  of  Euclid),  with 
Frontinus  and  Isidore ;  for  Astronomy, 

Hyginus  and  Ptolemy1.  In  this  con¬ 
nexion  it  is  interesting  to  point  out 
that  it  was  between  1134  and  11502, 
at  a  time  when  the  influence  of  Bernard 
was  still  strong  in  Chartres,  when  his 
immediate  pupils  were  actually  teaching 
in  its  famous  school,  and  while  his 
brother  Theodoric  was  successively 
‘master  of  the  school’  and  ‘chancellor’, 
that  the  right-hand  door- way  of  the 
West  Front  of  the  cathedral  was 
adorned  with  figures  of  the  Seven  Arts, 
each  of  them  associated  with  an  an¬ 
cient  personage,  Grammar  with  Priscian, 

Dialectic  with  Aristotle,  Rhetoric  with 
Cicero,  Music  with  Pythagoras,  Arith¬ 
metic  with  Nicomachus,  Geometry  with 
Euclid,  and  Astronomy  with  Ptolemy3. 

We  may  here  notice  a  certain 
preference  for  Greek  authorities,  even 
in  cases  where  the  text-books  in  current 
use  were  Latin ;  and  it  will  be  ob¬ 
served  that  Boethius,  who  fills  a  large  part  of  the  Eptateuchon, 


pcc.msc 


Grammar  and  Priscian 
from  Chartres  Cathedral. 

(Viollet-le-Duc,  Diet. 
Arc  hit.  ii  2.) 


1  Abbe  Clerval,  Les  Jicoles  de  Chartres  au  Moyen-Age  (1895),  p.  222  f 
(synopsis  of  the  Eptateuchon).  Cp.  p.  513  n.  4. 

2  The  dates  given  by  Abbe  Clerval,  Guide  Chartrain,  7  f. 

3  Cuts  in  Viollet-le-Duc,  Diet.  Archit.  s.v.  Arts  Liberaux ,  and  E.  Male, 
D Art  Religieux  du  xiiie  s.  (1898),  117.  The  idea  was  borrowed  from 


646 


THE  SCHOOL  OF  CHARTRES. 


[CHAP. 


is  absent  from  the  sculptures.  These  are  approximately  assigned 
to  11451;  it  may  therefore  be  conjectured  that  the  absence  of 
any  public  recognition  of  Boethius  among  the  external  sculptures 
of  the  cathedral  may  have  been  possibly  due  to  the  suspicions 
of  heresy,  which  in  1146-8 2  gathered  round  the  name  of  Gilbert 
de  la  Porree,  chancellor  of  Chartres,  in  connexion  with  his  com¬ 
mentary  on  the  four  books  On  the  Trinity ,  ascribed  to  Boethius. 
But  the  names  of  the  above  representatives  of  the  Arts,  though 
probably  correct,  are  only  conjectural ;  and,  after  all,  it  is  from 
Boethius  that  the  designations  of  the  Greek  authorities  on  Music, 
Arithmetic  and  Geometry  are  derived.  Apart  from  the  cathedral 
of  Clermont,  that  of  Chartres  stands  alone  in  according,  among 
its  works  of  art,  a  place  of  honour  to  representatives  of  the  old 
classical  world3;  and  this  is  true  not  only  of  the  sculptures  of  the 
West  Front  (1145),  but  also  of  those  of  the  North  Porch  (1275), 
where  Medicine  is  represented  by  Hippocrates,  Geometry  by 
Archimedes,  Painting  by  Apelles,  and  Philosophy  by  Aristotle4. 

To  the  school  of  Chartres  (as  we  have  already  seen)5  John  of 

Salisbury  owes  his  excellent  Latin  style  and  his  general  interest 

» 

in  Classics.  He  regretfully  remarks  that,  since  the  days  that  he 
spent  under  the  pupils  of  Bernard,  ‘less  time  and  less  care 
have  been  bestowed  on  grammar ,  and  persons  who  profess  all 
arts,  liberal  and  mechanical,  are  ignorant  of  the  primary  art, 
without  which  a  man  proceeds  in  vain  to  the  rest;  for,  albeit 
the  other  studies  assist  literature,  yet  this  has  the  sole  privilege 


Martianus  Capella  (p.  230  supra).  Among  other  cathedrals,  where  the  Seven 
Liberal  Arts  were  represented  (at  a  later  date  than  at  Chartres,  and  unaccom¬ 
panied  by  classical  personages)  are  those  of  Laon  and  Sens  (xn),  Auxerre  (end 
of  xiii ),  Rouen  and  Soissons.  At  Clermont  Aristotle,  Cicero  and  Pythagoras 
are  represented  with  the  attributes  of  the  corresponding  Arts,  but  the  Arts 
themselves  are  absent.  The  statues  of  Philosophy  at  Laon  and  at  Sens  are 
modelled  on  the  description  in  Boethius,  Cons,  i  1  (Male,  pp.  122-5,  an(b  in 
general,  102-121).  For  the  representations  of  the  Seven  Arts  in  the  Hortus 
Deliciarum ,  see  plate  on  p.  537  supra. 

1  W.  Voge,  Die  Anfdnge  des  monumentalen  Stils  im  MA  (1894),  pp.  118 — 
123,  156;  E.  Male,  119. 

2  Poole,  179 — 1 91. 

4  Cuts  in  Viollet-le-Duc,  ii  8 — 9. 

5  PP-  517—522. 


3  Male,  1 21,  426  f. 


XXXII.] 


THE  SCHOOL  OF  CHARTRES. 


647 


of  making  one  lettered’1.  The  results  of  the  classical  education 
initiated  by  Bernard  are  also  clearly  seen  in  Peter  of  Blois 
(e.  1135 — 1204),  who  passed  his  youth  at  Chartres  and  had  the 
highest  admiration  for  John  of  Salisbury.  In  one  of  his  letters 
he  expresses  his  doubts  about  a  pupil  who,  neglecting  a  know¬ 
ledge  of  Grammar  and  classical  authors,  has  betaken  himself  to 
the  subtleties  of  Logic,  ‘  which  supply  no  proper  foundation  for 
literary  learning’2.  Similarly,  Giraldus  Cambrensis,  writing  in  his 
old  age  (c.  1220),  requires  of  all  who  desire  to  speak,  not  only 
rede,  but  also  lepide  and  ornate ,  an  education,  not  in  the  trivium 
alone,  but  also  in  the  authors3. 

From  the  twelfth  century  onwards,  a  marked  improvement 
in  Latin  versification  is  manifest  in  France.  A  careful  study 
of  models  such  as  Statius,  Lucan  and  Ovid,  as  well  as  Tibullus 
and  Propertius,  may  be  noted  in  the  poems  of  Matthew  of 
Vendome4.  Virgil,  Horace,  the  elegiac  poets  and  Martial  are 
imitated  by  the  best  of  the  mediaeval  Latin  poets,  Hildebert, 
archbishop  of  Tours5 6. 

In  the  history  of  classical  studies  in  the  Middle  Ages  an 
important  place  must  be  assigned  to  the  struggle 
between  the  schools  of  Paris  and  Orleans b.  The 
latter  had  been  founded  in  the  age  of  Charles  the  Great  by  the 
bishop  of  Orleans,  Theodulfus,  whose  familiarity  with  classical 
literature  is  proved  by  his  poem  de  libris  quos  legere  so/ebam7. 
The  classical  tradition  was  maintained  at  Orleans,  and  was 

1  Met.  i  27  (Poole,  122  f). 

2  Chartularium  Univ.  Paris.,  i  27  f,  grammaticae  et  auctorum  scientia 
praetermissa  volavit  ad  versutias  logicorum...non  est  in  talibus  fundamentum 
scientiae  litteralis,  multisque  perniciosa  est  ista  subtilitas.  Cp.  p.  522 
supra. 

3  Prooem.  of  Speculum  Eccl. ,  preserved  by  Ant.  Wood,  quoted  in  Brewer’s 
ed.,  iv  7.  Cp.  p.  523  supra. 

4  P-  53°  supra. 

5  p.  529  supra.  His  Moralis  Philosophia  (clxxi  Migne)  abounds  in  quota¬ 
tions  from  the  Classics. 

6  Delisle  in  Annuaire  Bulletin  de  la  Soc.  de  V Hisloire  de  France ,  vii  (1869), 
139 — 154;  Mile  A.  de  Foulques  de  Villaret,  Mem.  de  la  Soc.  archeol...de 
V Orleanais,  xiv  (1875)  299 — 440;  Norden,  724!;  Rashdall,  ii  136-8. 

7  i  543  Dummler. 


648 


THE  SCHOOL  OF  ORLEANS. 


[CHAP. 


further  strengthened  by  the  proximity  of  the  schools  of  Fleury1 
and  Chartres.  The  school  of  Orleans  sent  forth  a  series  of 
men  of  learning  in  the  eleventh  and  twelfth  centuries.  During 
the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries  in  particular,  the  art  of 
letter-writing  flourished  at  Orleans  and  in  its  immediate  neigh¬ 
bourhood.  That  art  became,  indeed,  so  widely  popular  in  the 
thirteenth  century,  that  it  even  ceased  to  retain  the  distinction, 
which  it  had  won  in  the  hands  of  men  of  mark  in  the  previous 
century2.  The  success  with  which  classical  composition  was 
cultivated  at  Orleans  is  proved  by  the  fact  that  the  three  papal 
secretaries  of  1159  to  1185  (besides  several  Latin  poets,  and 
commentators  on  Ovid  and  Lucan3)  were  produced  by  that 
school.  A  Latin  versifier,  who  wrote  in  England  about  the  year 
1200,  places  Orleans  as  a  school  of  Literature  (literally  ‘  Authors ’) 
on  a  level  with  Salerno,  Bologna  and  Paris  as  schools  of  Medicine, 
Law  and  Logic  respectively4.  While  the  school  of  Orleans  was 
attacked  by  Alexander  of  Villedieu5,  the  Latin  poets  produced  by 
that  school  were  lauded  by  two  poets  of  English  birth,  Alexander 
Neckam6  and  Joannes  de  Garlandia7.  Even  when  the  school  of 
Chartres,  overshadowed  by  Paris,  began  to  decline,  the  classical 
tradition  lived  on  at  Orleans  till  at  least  the  middle  of  the 
thirteenth  century8.  In  that  century  the  school  acquired  a  new 
interest  through  its  struggle  with  the  Sorbonne.  Orleans  had 

1  Cuissard-Gaucheron  in  Mem.  de  la  Soc.  archeol.  de  V Orleanais,  xiv  (1875) 
551 — 715.  The  great  abbey  church  of  St  Benoit-sur-Loire  is  all  that  now 
survives  of  the  buildings  of  the  famous  school  of  Fleury.  Its  mss  were 
dispersed  in  1562. 

2  N.  Valois,  De  Arte  Scribendi  Epistolas  apud  Gallicos  Medii  Aevi 
Scriptores  (r88o),  24,  28  f,  39^  43.  On  Bernard  Silvester’s  Summa  Die - 
taminum  (e.  1153)  see  p.  514  supra. 

3  In  one  of  the  models  of  the  art  of  letter-writing  the  student  asks  for 
commentaries  on  Virgil  and  Lucan.  There  were  glosses  on  Ovid  by  Arnoul 
le  Roux  of  Orleans  (c.  xn). 

4  Galfridus  de  Vino  Salvo,  Po'etria  Nova,  1009  f,  other  passages  quoted 
by  Delisle,  Reichling  {Mon.  Ger?n.  Paed.  xii  p.  xxxvii  f),  and  Norden,  727  f. 
Cp.  p.  526  supra. 

5  Ecclesiale ,  prolog. 

6  De  Naticris  Rerum ,  p.  454  Wright. 

7  Ars  Lectoria  (1234),  Delisle  l.c.  p.  145. 

8  Rashdall,  ii  138. 


I 


XXXII.] 


ORLEANS  VERSUS  PARIS. 


649 


neglected  the  study  of  philosophy  and  had  insisted  solely  on  the 
attainment  of  purity  of  style  through  the  direct  study  of  classical 
authors,  especially  Virgil  and  Lucan.  The  Authors  were  supreme 
at  Orleans,  the  Arts  in  Paris1.  This  contrast  is  clearly  shown  in 
certain  Latin  poems  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries2.  It  is 
still  more  vividly  represented  in  the  contemporary  poem  of  Henri 
d’Andely  on  the  Battle  of  the  Seven  Arts,  which  belongs  to  the  latter 
part  of  c.  xiii3.  The  conflict  between  the  study  of  philosophy  in 
Paris  and  the  cultivation  of  literature,  especially  poetic  literature, 
at  Orleans,  is  here  represented  as  a  battle  between  the  forces  of 
Logic  and  of  Grammar.  The  piece  is  not  without  interest  as  a 
precursor  of  a  far  better  known  production,  Swift’s  Battle  of 
the  Books  (1697).  The  following  may  serve  as  a  brief  summary : — 

Grammar  unfurls  her  banner  before  the  walls  of  Orleans,  and  summons  all 
her  forces  to  the  fray.  Around  that  banner  gather  ‘Homer’  and  Claudian, 
Persius,  Donatus  and  Priscian,  with  many  another  knight  and  squire.  They 
are  soon  reinforced  by  the  chieftains  of  Orleans  itself,  when  they  all  combine  in 
a  march  on  Paris.  Logic  trembles  at  their  approach ;  she  summons  aid  from 
Tournai  and  elsewhere,  and  places  in  a  chariot  three  of  her  champions  who 
are  skilled  in  all  the  Liberal  Arts.  Rhetoric  has  meanwhile  taken  up  her 
stand  with  the  Lombard  knights4  at  a  fort  six  leagues  distant  from  Paris5, 
where  her  forces  are  joined  by  those  of  certain  other  Arts : — Physic,  Surgery, 
Music,  Astronomy,  Arithmetic  and  Geometry,  while  Theology  remains  apart 
in  Paris.  Among  the  champions  of  that  city  are  Plato  and  Aristotle.  Donatus 
begins  the  battle  by  attacking  Plato ;  Aristotle  meanwhile  attacks  Priscian, 
but  is  thrown  from  his  steed  and  continues  to  tight  on  foot  against  Grammar, 
i.e.  Priscian  (who  is  aided  by  his  modern  ‘nephews’,  Alexander  and  Eberhard), 
when  he  is  himself  attacked,  not  by  Priscian  only,  but  by  Virgil  and  Horace, 
Lucan  and  Statius,  Persius  and  Juvenal,  Propertius,  Sedulius,  Arator,  Terence 
and  ‘  Homer’;  and  would  certainly  have  surrendered,  but  for  the  aid  of  Logic 
and  the  several  impersonations  of  the  Organon ,  Physics  and  Ethics ,  with 
Porphyry,  Macrobius  and  Boethius.  Dan  Barbarime,  though  a  vassal  of 
Grammar,  takes  up  arms  against  her,  because  he  also  holds  lands  in  the 
domain  of  Logic.  While  the  battle  goes  on  raging,  the  Authors  find  it  hard 

1  The  Statute  of  1254  prescribes  certain  parts  of  Aristotle,  with  Donatus, 
Boethius  and  Priscian,  but  none  of  the  Latin  Classics. 

2  Quoted  by  Delisle,  l.c.;  others  add  a  passage  from  the  discourse  delivered 
at  Toulouse  by  the  learned  monk,  Helinand,  in  1229:  ‘  ecce  quaerunt  clerici 
Parisiis  artes  liberates,  Aurelianis  auctores ,  Bononiae  codices,  Salerni  pyxides, 
Toleti  daemones,  et  nusquam  mores’  ( Sermo  2,  In  Asc.  Domini ). 

3  The  author  was  a  Canon  of  Rouen  about  1270. 

4  See  n.  3,  p.  650  infra.  5  Mont-l’Heri. 


650  THE  BATTLE  OF  THE  SEVEN  ARTS.  [CHAP.  XXXII. 


to  hold  their  own,  although  Ovid  and  Seneca  hasten  to  their  aid,  together  with 
certain  modern  poets,  including  Jean  de  Hauteville  and  Alain  de  l’lsle1. 
Logic,  however,  is  obliged  to  withdraw  to  the  fort  held  by  Rhetoric  and 
Astronomy,  and  is  there  beleaguered  by  the  forces  of  Grammar,  till  she  sends 
down  an  envoy  who  unfortunately  knows  so  little  of  the  rules  of  speech  that 
he  cannot  even  deliver  his  message  clearly  and  is  accordingly  compelled  to 
return  without  result.  Meanwhile  Astronomy  flings  her  lightning  on  her  foes, 
burns  their  tents  and  scatters  their  forces;  and,  since  that  day,  the  Muse  of 
Poetry  has  buried  herself  out  of  sight,  somewhere  between  Orleans  and  Blois, 
never  daring  to  show  herself  in  the  land  where  her  rival,  Logic,  is  holding 
sway.  But  she  is  honoured  still  by  the  Britons  and  the  Germans2,  although 
the  Lombards  hate  her3.  ‘This  will  last’  (adds  the  poet)  ‘for  thirty  years; 
but  the  next  generation  will  once  more  give  heed  to  Grammar.  Meanwhile, 

I  declare  that  any  scholar  who  cannot  construe  his  text  is  a  contemptible 
person,  since,  in  every  science,  whoever  is  not  perfect  in  his  parts  of  speech, 
must  be  deemed  the  merest  boy’4. 

Before  the  year  1300  the  literary  school  of  Orleans  had  been 
thrown  into  the  shade  by  the  schools  of  the  Seven  Arts  in  Paris, 
and  the  study  of  Law  alone  survived5.  But  the  fourteenth  century 
saw  the  fulfilment  of  the  poet’s  prophecy  of  a  revival  of  learning, 
which  began,  not  in  France  or  Germany  or  England,  but  in 
Northern  Italy,  where,  in  the  early  years  of  that  century,  the 
morning-star  of  the  Renaissance  arose  in  the  person  of  Petrarch. 

1  Only  indicated  by  the  names  of  their  poems,  Architre7iius  and  Anti- 
claudianus  respectively  (pp.  525,  531  supra).  Similarly,  Gautier  de  Chatillon 
is  clearly  meant  by  ‘  geta  ducis  Macidum  ’,  which  the  editor  of  the  text  has 
twice  refrained  from  correcting  into  Gesta  ducis  Macedum,  the  first  words  of 
the  Alexandras  (p.  530  supra). 

2  Li  Breton  et  li  Alemant.  ‘  Les  Anglais  ’,  says  d’Aussy  in  his  paraphrase, 
implying  that  Bretons  are  not  meant.  In  1.  404  the  poet  uses  the  unambiguous 
/’ Englois  in  allusion  to  Adam  du  Petit-Pont. 

3  A  reference  to  the  Lombard  usurers  in  France,  who  are  represented  as 
hating  the  Muse  of  Poetry,  only  because  they  dun  poets  for  their  dues. 

4  Quar  en  totite  Science  est  gars, 

Mestres ,  qui  n'entent  bien  ses  pars. 

Text  in  Appendix  to  Jubinal’s  ed.  of  Rutebeuf  ii  (1839)  415 — 435  and  in 
iii  (1875)  325 — 347  5  abstract  by  Legrand  d’Aussy  in  Notices  et  Extraits, 
v  (1800)  496 — 512,  and  in  Norden,  728-31. 

5  V.  Le  Clerc,  Hist.  Litt.  278s;  Rashdall,  ii  138  f. 


INDEX. 


Aachen,  456,  463,  484,  486,  600,  614 
Abbo,  (1)  ‘Cernuus’,  481,  586;  (2)  of 
Fleury,  492 

Abelard  ( Abaielardus ,  525),  509  f ;  506, 

5 1 7»  5 33>  586>  595  >  613,  624 
Accents,  126 
Accius,  1 71 
Accursius,  536,  582 
Accusative  Absolute,  434,  643 
Acominatus,  (1)  Michael,  41 1  f;  (2) 
Nicetas,  411,  414 
Aero,  200 
Acropolites,  415 
Ada  ms,  600  n. 

Adam,  (r)  of  Bremen,  498;  (2)  bp 
of  Hereford,  563  n.  6  ;  (3)  du  Petit- 
Pont,  507  ;  (4)  of  St  Victor,  530 
‘Adamantius  Martyrius  \  252,  254 
(Teuffel,  §  472,  6) 

Adelard  of  Bath,  5 1 1  f,  630,  645 
^Elfric  of  Eynsham,  493,  495 
Aelian,  329 
Aemilianus  Macer,  251 
Aemilius  Paullus,  L.,  169  f 
Aeneas,  162  ;  (2)  Neo-Platonist,  365 
Aeschines  and  Homer,  33 
Aeschylus,  24,  52-4,  65;  131,  141  ; 

284,  394,  420 
Aetius,  364 

Africanus,  (1)  Julius,  342,  390  ;  (2) 
Constantinus,  539 

Agapetus,  (1)  pope,  249  ;  (2)  deacon, 

388 

Agathias,  380  f 
Agius  of  Corvey,  480  n.  3 
Alain  de  l’lsle  ( Alarms  ab  Insulis), 
531  f;  230,  622,  650 
Albans,  St,  525,  553  f,  580,  600  f 
Alberico  of  (r)  Monte  Cassino,  648 
n.  2  ;  (2)  Bologna,  535 
Albert  of  Saxony,  577 


Albertus  Magnus,  558  f;  506,  550, 
57*,  592 

Albinus  on  Plato,  321 
Albrecht  von  Halberstadt,  615 
Alcaeus,  44,  270,  280,  345 
Alciphron,  310 
Aleman,  23,  47 

Alcuin,  455  f;  241,  254,  259,  466, 
589,600,  612,  623.  Cp.  Haureau, 
i2  123  f;  Wattenbach  G.  Q.  i6  150- 
163  ;  Hauck,  Kifchengeschichte ,  ii 
1 16-145 ;  on  his  Grammar,  Frey, 
1886;  and  on  his  influence,  Mon- 
nier,  264~82 

Aldhelm,  450  f  (portrait  in  Social 
England ,  i2,  307) 

Alexander  the  Great,  34,  46,  101  f ; 
in  MA,  637 

Alexander,  (1)  Aetolus,  121,  162; 

(2)  of  Aphrodisias,  333  ;  548,  584  ; 

(3)  of  Cotyaeum,  305  ;  (4)  son  of 
Numenius,  31 1  ;  (5)  Polyhistor, 
*59,  325  5  (6)  of  Hales,  551  f;  506, 
528,  561,  571,  576;  (7)  of  Alex¬ 
andria,  552  ;  (8)  of  Villedieu,  532, 
585,  640  f,  648  f 

Alexandria,  j  o  1  ;  School  of,  105-43, 
160;  Museum,  105  f ;  Libraries, 
107  f,  tio-114,  409;  Librarians, 
1 14;  Serapeum,  1x3,  341,  355; 
Alexandria  and  Pergamon,  111, 
159-62  ;  Alexandria  in  c.  VI,  374 
Alexandrian  age,  102-64 ;  dates  of, 
104  ;  phases  of  scholarship  in,  159  f ; 
seats  of  learning  in,  160-4  >  Alex¬ 
andrian  canon,  129  f;  literature,  115 
Alfanus,  500 

Alfarabi,  387,  555,  563  n.  5 
Alfred  the  Great,  481  f;  242;  (2) 
‘Alfred  the  Englishman’,  536,  547, 

569 


652 


INDEX. 


Algazel,  387,  552.  Alkendi,  386 
Allegorical  interpretation  of  the  Bible, 
335*  344>  432;  Homer,  29,  147, 
J54>  337*  409;  Virgil,  610;  Ovid, 
615  f;  myths  and  mythology,  147, 
462,  590,  637 
Alpetraugi,  544 

Alphabet,  Greek,  88  f,  275,  572 
Ambrose,  St,  234;  206,  223,  607 
Amiatinus,  codex ,  251 
Ammianus  Marcellinus,  206,  604 
Ammonius  of  Alexandria,  (1)  pupil 
of  Aristarchus,  136;  (2)  father  of 
Tryphon,  142  ;  (3)  Saccas  (c.  ill), 
334 ;  (4)  author  of  work  on  Syno¬ 
nyms  (c.  iv),  142,  355,  370;  (5)  son 
of  Hermeias  (c.  vi),  367,  563 
Anacreon,  44,  127,  345 
Analogy  and  Anomaly,  128,  131,  142, 
148,  154  f,  161,  175-7 
Anastasius  I  (emp.  491  A.D.),  258  ;  (2) 
of  Antioch  (c.  vi),  382  ;  (3)  Sinaites 
(c.  vn),  385;  (4)  papal  librarian 
(c.  ix),  474 
Anaxagoras,  30 
Anaximenes,  109 

Andreas,  (1)  of  Crete,  384  ;  (2)  Lopa- 
diotes,  406  ;  (3)  Andreas  (Andrew), 
and  Michael  Scot,  545,  569 
Androclus  and  the  Lion,  200,  289 
Andronicus,  Livius,  167,  199 ;  (2) 
Andr.  Rhodius,  164 
Anselm  (St)  of  Aosta,  prior  and  abbot 
of  Bee,  and  abp  of  Canterbury, 
497>  506,  508,  550;  (2)  of 

Bisate,  499  ;  (3)  of  Laon,  468 
Anthologia  Palatina,  397  f;  Planudea, 
418 

Antidorus  of  Cumae,  7 
Antigonus  of  Carystos,  149,  161 
Antimachus,  34,  38 
Antioch,  163,  344,  347,  374 
Antipater  of  Sidon,  268 
Antiphanes,  on  Alexandrian  critics,  398 
Antisthenes,  92,  109 
Aphthonius,  373;  108,  31 1,  420 
Apion,  288 

Apollinaris  of  Laodicea,  352 
Apollinaris  Sidonius,  230  f ;  208;  (2) 
Sulpicius  A.,  198 

Apollodorus,  (1)  of  Athens  (chrono- 
loger),  135  f,  151  ;  (2)  of  Pergamon 
(rhetorician),  158 

Apollonius,  (1)  Rhodius,  114,  116, 
122,  269,  270 ;  (2)  Dyscolus,  312  f ; 
258,  303;  (3)  of  Perga,  149;  (4) 
son  of  Archibius,  289 


Apsines,  330  f 

Apuleius,  310;  216  n.  2,  574;  De 
Dogmate  P/at  on  is,  310,  508 ;  De 
Herbis ,  599;  De  Mundo ,  31 1,  515 
n.  2 

Apulia,  William  of,  524 
Aquinas,  (St)  Thomas,  560  f ;  506, 
550,  576 ;  his  interest  in  Greek, 
561  f;  his  commentaries  on  Aris¬ 
totle,  560,  562 ;  his  relation  to 
Averroes,  542,  560  and  pi.  facing 
560;  his  Latin  hymns,  530;  his  in¬ 
fluence  on  Dante,  592 
Arabic,  study  of,  575  f,  585;  Latin 
translations  of  Arabic  renderings  of 
(1)  Aristotle,  539^  544,  548,  558, 
565 ;  (2)  Hippocrates  and  Galen, 
539*  544  5  (3)  Euclid,  512;  (4) 
Ptolemy,  540,  543 

Arabs,  study  of  Aristotle  among  the, 

(1)  in  the  East,  385  f;  (2)  in  the 
West,  540-2 

Arator,  436.  Aratus,  116,  162 
Arcadius,  Pseudo-,  126  n.  1,  355 
Archilochus,  22,  50;  129,  131;  270, 
283,  361 

Arethas,  395  ;  376,  425 
Aristarchus,  130-5;  114,  140,  161  _ 

Aristides,  Aelius,  305  f,  348,  395 ; 

(2)  author  of  Apology ,  383  ;  (3)  Ar. 
Quintilianus,  335,  337 

Aristippus  of  Catania,  508  n.  1,  520 
n.  5 

Aristobulus,  325 
Aristonicus,  140,  14 1 
Aristophanes,  32,  43  ;  in  Plato’s  Sym¬ 
posium,  61;  the  Frogs,  53  f,  60; 
in  Alexandrian  age,  Aristoph.  of 
Byzantium  on,  128;  Aristarchus, 
t  3 1  ;  Callistratus,  135;  Crates,  154; 
Didymus,  141  ;  in  Roman  age, 
Plutarch,  298;  Symmachus,  321; 
Byz.  scholia ,  409,  420 
Aristotle,  on  Homer,  33,  35  f ;  dra¬ 
matic  criticism  in,  62  f;  his  didas- 
caliae,  64  f ;  his  criticism  of  poetry, 
70-2 ;  outline  of  his  Treatise  on 
Poetry,  73  f ;  and  of  the  third 
Book  of  his  Rhetoric,  79  f ;  his  re¬ 
lations  to  Isocrates  and  Demos¬ 
thenes,  81  f;  his  quotations  from 
Plato,  83  ;  Grammar  in  Ar.,  97  ; 
the  fortunes  of  his  mss,  85  f ;  An¬ 
dronicus  of  Rhodes,  164  ;  Arabic 
list  of  his  works,  304 
The  Categories  studied  by  St  Augus¬ 
tine,  223,  478  ;  expositions  of  Ar. 


INDEX. 


653 


by  Alexander  of  Aphrodisias, 
333,  Themistius,  345,  Syrianus, 
365,  Ammonius,  367,  David  the 
Armenian,  363,  Philoponus,  367, 
and  Simplicius,  368 

Roman  study  of,  177,  265  f;  Vet- 
tius  Agorius  and  the  Analytics , 
224 ;  translations  from  the  Or¬ 
ganon  by  Boethius,  239,  241, 
489,  558  (and  by  others,  5 10,  553); 
abstract  by  Cassiodorus,  253 

In  Byz.  age,  382;  383,  389,  403, 
418,  421  ;  among  the  Syrians 
and  Arabians,  385  f ;  Saracenic 
interest  in  Ar.,  565 

In  MA  in  the  West;  (1)  ‘  Logica 
Vetus’;  Interpr.  and  Categ. 
studied  by  Joannes  Scotus,  476, 
Eric  of  Auxerre,  478,  and  Jean 
de  Vandieres,  484 ;  Interpr.  and 
Top.  introduced  into  Germany 
by  Gunzo,  480 ;  Interpr.  and 
Categ.  expounded  by  Gerbert, 
489,  and  translated  into  German 
by  Notker  Labeo,  499 

(2)  ‘Logica  Nova’;  Anal .,  Top., 
and  Soph.  El.  translated  (1128) 
by  Jacobus  Clericus  de  Venetia, 
507,  535,  and  introduced  into 
Germany  by  Otto  of  Freising, 
512  ;  Anal.  Pr.  known  to  Adam 
du  Petit- Pont,  507,  and  Abelard, 
510;  and  Anal.  Post,  to  author 
of  De  Intellectibus,  510;  the 
Organon  in  Theodoric’s  Eptateu- 
chon ,  513,  and  in  John  of  Salis¬ 
bury’s  Metalogicus ,  5 19  f ;  Anal. 
Post,  etc.,  known  to  Neckam, 
536,  translated  from  Arabic  by 
Gerard  of  Cremona,  540 ;  Soph. 
El.  expounded  at  Oxford  by 
Edmund  Rich,  Anal.  Post,  by 
‘Master  Hugo’,  570,  and  both 
by  Grosseteste,  553 ;  Interpr.  and 
Anal,  etc.,  criticised  by  Thomas 
Aquinas,  562 ;  Anal.  Pr.  ex¬ 
pounded  by  Siger,  565  ;  William 
of  Ockham  on  Categ.,  578;  Richard 
of  Bury  on  Interpr.,  580  n.  5 

(3)  The  new  Aristotle,  539  f,  565  f ; 
Latin  translations  from  the  Arabic, 

54°>  547’  54^»  558  565*  638; 

from  the  Greek,  520,  548,  558  f, 
562,  5 66 ;  criticised  by  Roger 
Bacon,  569-572 ;  their  Latinity, 
560,  643 ;  Ar.  expounded  by  Avi¬ 
cenna,  387,  Averroes,  541,  Alber- 


tus  Magnus,  558  f,  and  Thomas 
Aquinas,  560  f ;  study  of  Physics 
arid  Met.  previously  forbidden  in 
Paris,  549,  570  ;  allowed,  550; 
supreme  authority  of  Ar. ,  582, 
593  (Dante)  ;  legends  of,  565, 
637  ;  prejudice  against  study  of 
his  logic,  585  ;  Physics,  367,  507, 
510,  540,  553,  559,  562,  575; 
Met.  365,  416,  507,  510,  548  f; 
Meteor.  5 40, 547, 562;  De  Caelo, 
540>  559>  562  ;  De  Anima,  536, 

539’  548,  552j  559  »  De  Gen‘  et 
Corr.  540  ;  De  Somno  et  Vigilia, 
570;  Hist.  An.  544  f ;  Rhet.  35, 
79  f,  274,  546,  548,  555,  563, 
569;  Poet.  24,  35  f,  47,  63,  73  f, 
546,  566,  569,  593  ;  Ethics ,  548, 
554’  562,  563  n.  6,  564,  570; 
Magna  Moralia ,  547  ;  Pol.  542, 
548,  558,  562,  563,  565  ;  [De 
Regimine  Principum\  565  ;  Con¬ 
stitution  of  Athens,  S&,  403 ; 
[Physiogn.],  565;  [ Problems ],  36, 
584;  [De  Causis ],  532,  540,  548  f, 
552,  563  n.  5  ;  [De  Mundo],  31 1, 
515  n.  ;  [De  Plantis ],  536,  547 
Aristoxenus,  99 
Arno  of  Salzburg,  459 
Arnobius,  205,  609 
Arrian,  303 
Arruntius  Celsus,  198 
Arsinoe  II,  106,  122,  143 
Artemidorus  of  Ephesus,  304 
Artemon  of  Pergamon,  158 
Arthurian  legends,  Latin  version,  525  f 
Arts,  the  Seven  Liberal,  174,  223, 
228-30,  253,  408,  458,  462,  513, 
525  n.  5,  526,  531,  533,  596,  643  f ; 
in  Hortus  Deliciarum,  pi.  537;  in 
fresco  of  ‘  Spanish  Chapel  ’,  Florence, 
259,  644;  in  mediaeval  sculpture, 
645  f 

Arts  versus  Authors,  508,  644,  649  f 
Asclepiades  of  Myrleia,  1 58 
Asclepius,  357 
Asconius,  191;  442 
Asper,  Aemilius,  197,  21 1 
Asser,  482  ;  454 
Asterius  (cons.  494  A. D.),  235 
Ateius  Praetextatus,  L.,  5,  182 
Athanasius,  207,  343 
Athenaeus,  330 
Athenodorus  of  Tarsus,  159 
Athens,  and  the  Athenian  age,  17-102  ; 
dates,  18;  in  the  Alexandrian  age, 
162 ;  Schools  of,  343,  345,  347,  35 1 , 


654 


INDEX. 


364-8  ;  description  of  surroundings 
by  Psellus,  402 ;  Athens  in  c.  xil, 
412  ;  Athens  and  England,  413 
Attalus  I,  149,  161 ;  II,  135,151,  157  ; 
III,  152 

Attic  Comedy,  Eratosthenes  on,  125; 

literary  criticism  in,  53-57 
Atticists,  Greek,  316  f;  308/;  Roman, 
265 

Atticus,  the  friend  of  Cicero,  181; 
320?;  (2)  commentator  on  Plato, 
322 

Auctor  and  Autor ,  593  n. 

Augustine  (St),  (1)  bp  of  Hippo,  Con¬ 
fessions  etc.,  222-4;  [Categories], 
4/8,  505,  507;  Dialectic ,  224,  485, 
507;  Soliloquies,  482 ;  Orosius  and 
Pelagius,  364;  (2)  abp  of  Canter¬ 
bury,  449 

Aurelius,  M.,  302  f 
Ausonius,  209  f 

Authority  and  reason,  476,  508,  520 
Autun,  233  n.  3,  614,  617 
Auvergne,  William  of,  548,  552 
Auxerre,  Eric  of,  479,  637;  cathedral, 
646  n. 

Avempace,  541 

Avendeath  (Avendehut),  539  f 
Averroes,  541  f,  544  f,  552,  560,  570, 

576,  579>  5Sl  n-  6,  5§2>  591  ?  on  Ar- 
De  Caelo,  De  Anima ,  Physics  and 
Met.  544,  545  n. ;  on  Ethics ,  546; 
refuted  by  Thomas  Aquinas,  542, 
cp.  pi.  facing  560 
Avianus,  627 
Avicebron,  542 

Avicenna,  387,  552,  559,  560;  on  Ar. 
De  Anima ,  539;  Abbreviatio  Avi- 
cennae ,  544  f 

Avitus,  Alcimus,  234  (Teuffel,  §  474, 5) 

Bacchylides,  47,  141,  285,  353 
Bacon,  Roger,  567-75;  5°7>  529>  543 
(Gerard  of  Cremona),  545  (Michael 
Scot),  547,  549,  553,  554,  557 

(Adam  Marsh  and  Grosseteste),  563 
Baconthorpe,  579 
Bagdad,  386  f,  389,  540 
Balbi  of  Genoa,  Catholicon  of,  584, 
640 

Balsham,  Hugh,  556 
Bamberg,  498;  mss,  607,  618,  619, 
628,  631,  634 

Barlaam,  423 ;  (2)  Barlaam  and Josa~ 
phat ,  383 

Bartholomew,  (1)  of  Messina,  547; 
(2)  De  Propr.  Rerum ,  638 


Basil  (St),  343;  Basilian  monks,  447 
Basil  I,  388,  392 
Basingstoke,  John  of,  413,  554 
Beauvais,  614,  632;  see  Vincent 
Bee,  497,  502  f,  534,  597,  630 
Becket,  516-8 

Bede  (Baeda),  45 if;  482,  574,  609, 
623,  638 

Belenum  ( beleho ),  ‘henbane’,  571 
Benedict,  St,  256  f;  Rule  of,  255,  257, 
500,  598;  Order  of,  258,  598;  the 
Benedictine  age,  461 ;  ‘Benedictine 
Bucolics’,  589;  (2)  Benedict  Biscop, 
452;  (3)  Benedict  III,  470 
Beneventum,  479,  520 
Benoit  de  Sainte-More,  524  n.  5,  623 
n-  3 

Benoit-sur-Loire,  St,  648  n.  1 
Bentley’s  Letter  to  Mill ,  382 
Benzo,  501,  613  (Wattenbach,  G.  Q. 
ii6  228) 

Ber^iire  (Bersuire,  Bercheure),  634, 
638 

Berengarii ,  Gcsta ,  485,  618 
Berengarius  of  Tours,  508 
Bernard,  (1)  of  Chartres,  511  f,  520  f, 
644,  646 ;  (2)  of  Clairvaux,  510,  530, 
627  n.  6;  (3)  of  Cluni,  530;  (4)  of 
Moelan,  514;  (5)  B.  Silvester  of 
Tours,  513,  514-6,  530,  610,  622 
Berne,  ms  of  Virgil,  459,  612;  Horace, 
614;  Lucan,  617 

Bernward  of  Hildesheim,  492,  502 
Bertin,  abbey  of  St,  609,  619 
Berytus,  374 
Bessarion,  423 

Bible,  allegorical  interpretation  of,  335, 
344,  432  ;  ms  of,  in  Caroline  minus¬ 
cules,  471  ;  see  also  Vidgate 
Bion,  1 1 5 
Blemmydes,  415 

Bobbio,  440-2,  490,  602  f,  607,  609, 
612,  618  f,  626  f 
Boccaccio,  636  n.  10 
Boethius,  237  f,  259  f,  621  f;  his 
translations  and  expositions  of  Aris¬ 
totle’s  Organon,  239,  470,  478,  489, 

499»  5°7>  5°9>  5I2>  52°>  568;  non- 
Boethian  transls.,  510,  553;  transl. 
of  Porphyry’s  Introduction ,  239, 
488,  505  f;  the  Scholastic  Problem, 
239  f,  505  f ;  Philosophiae  Conso- 
latio,  241,  482,  487,  511,  515,  531, 
622;  De  Trinitate,  241,  512,646; 
treatises  on  Arithmetic,  Geometry 
and  Music,  239,  646 
Bologna,  606;  Irnerius,  Buoncom- 


INDEX. 


655 


pagno  and  Accursius,  582 ;  Michael 
Scot,  544  f;  Frederic  II,  546;  Del 
Virgilio,  589 
Bonaccursius,  584 
Bonaventura,  506,  557,  567 
Boniface,  St  ( Winfrid ),  453  f 
Brabant,  William  of,  562  f 
Bradwardine,  abp,  579  f,  615 
Britain  and  Ireland,  Greek  in,  448 
Brito,  (1)  author  of  Philippis ,  530; 

(2)  author  of  Vocabularium ,  572 
Brown,  Master  Thomas,  536 
Browning,  Robert,  2,  59;  Elizabeth 
Barrett,  296,  362 
Brunetto  Latini,  590,  604,  625 
Bruno,  abp  of  Cologne,  484,  486 
Bryennius,  Nicephorus,  407,  409 
Buoncompagno,  582,  639  n.  2,  643  n.  4 
Burana,  Carmina ,  526  n.  r 
Burgundio  of  Pisa,  536,  553  n.  12 
Buridan,  581 

Burley,  Walter,  579,  615,  624 
Bury,  607,  622;  Richard  of,  580,  615 
Byzantine  age,  376-428;  dates,  377, 
400;  ‘dark  age’  of  Byz.  literature, 
379’  3^3-5’  426;  study  of  the 
Classics.  394,  426;  Grammars,  425  f; 
mss,  395,  415,  427;  Byz.  Scholar¬ 
ship,  424-6;  debt  of  Scholarship 
to  the  Byz.  age,  427  f.  See  also 
Constantinople 

Caecilius,  169;  (2)  of  Calacte,  129,  281 
Caen,  502  f,  534 

Caesar,  on  Analogy,  176;  269,  470, 
502,  603  f,  632;  (2)  Caesar  the 
Lombard,  Grammar  of,  584 
Caesarea,  school  of,  374 
Caesellius  Vindex,  197 
Callimachus,  121  f;  114,  116,  129 
Callinus,  22,  130 
Calliopius,  608 
Callisthenes,  Pseudo-,  415 
Callistratus,  (1)  Aristophaneiis,  135; 

(2)  author  of  Eikones ,  329 
Camariotes,  Matthaeus,  423 
Cambridge  (in  1209),  606;  Franciscans 
in  (1224),  551;  Peterhouse  (1284), 
556  ;  dates  of  other  early  Colleges, 
538;  MSS,  facsimiles  from,  495,  503, 
516,  566;  other  mss,  319,  391, 
445,  450,  492  n.  4,  516  n.  1,  518 
n.  3,  527  f,  544  n.  6,  545  n.  3,  552, 
554’  562  n.  7,  563  n.  5,  567  n.,  573, 
579  n.  3,  618,  620  f,  631  n.  1,  641  n.  4 
Cancellarius ,  248 

Canon,  Alexandrian,  129  f;  Attic 


Orators,  129,  281;  Latin  Comic 
Poets,  178 

Canopus,  decree  of,  116 
Cantacuzenus,  emp.,  422 
Canterbury,  Christ  Church,  specimens 
of  hand,  502  f;  catalogue,  536,  573; 
St  Augustine’s  (Juvenal),  620;  the 
monks  and  Ovid,  615 
Cantimpre,  Thomas  de,  564 
Caper,  Flavius,  197 
Caroline  minuscules,  457,  471,  600  n. 
Carrels,  601 

Carthusians,  502  f ;  Carthusian  Rule, 

598 

Cases,  names  of,  Greek,  138,  145; 
Latin,  182 

Cassianus,  207,  255,  364 
Cassiodorus,  244-56;  237,  241,  260, 
433’  444’  466,  490,  499,  597,  602, 
638 

Castor  of  Rhodes,  163,  342 
Cathedrals  of  France,  the  Liberal 
Arts  at  Chartres  and  other,  645  f 
Cato  the  elder,  263  f;  251,  627 
Catonis  Disticha ,  499,  627 
Catullus,  268,  484,  603  f,  608 
Cedrenus,  407  ;  341 
Censorinus,  20 1  f 
Cermenate,  588 
Chalcidius,  367,  507,  510,  520 
Chalcondyles,  Demetrius  and  Laoni- 
cus,  422 
Chamaeleon,  99 

Champeaux,  William  of,  506,  509,  551 
Charax,  Joannes,  370 
Charisius,  206,  218,  453 
Charles  the  Bald,  465,  468,  473,  476, 
481 

Charles  the  Great,  revival  of  learning 
under,  455-464,  614;  his  tomb  at 
Aachen,  484 ;  ‘  Poeta  Saxo  ’  on,  480 
Chartres,  the  School  of,  under  Fulbert, 
490,  497;  Bernard  and  his  succes¬ 
sors,  5  1 1-5 14’  5 1 7’  5i9’  644;  John 
of  Salisbury,  5 1 7  f ,  520  f;  the  Seven 
Liberal  Arts,  in  the  Eptateuchon 
of  Theodoric,  513,  and  on  the  West 
Front  of  the  Cathedral,  645  f 
Chaucer,  1,  242,  515  n.  5,  524  n.  5, 
53^’  533  n.  1,  539  n.  3,  579,  616, 
617,  618,  620,  622 

Chilperic,  434  (Schmid,  Gesch.  d. 

Erziehung ,  11  i  333) 

Choerilus,  39 
Choeroboscus,  313,  381 
Choricius,  374 
Christodorus,  357 


656 


INDEX. 


Christophorus  of  Mytilene,  406 
Christus  Patiens  (cento),  344,  406 
Chrodegang  of  Metz,  446 
Chronicon  Paschale ,  382 
Chrysippus,  147  f 

Chrysoloras  (XpvaoXwpas),  421,  573 
Chrysostom  (St),  344,  348;  (2)  see 
Dion 

Chumnus,  Nicephorus,  418  f 
Cicero,  an  analogist,  1 76 ;  Latin  philo¬ 
logy  in,  180;  literary  criticism  in, 
178-180;  his  Greek  authorities, 
265-7 ;  De  Oratore,  470,  604,  623 ; 
Orator ,  15,  99,  180,  467  n.  2,  604; 
To  pic  a,  239;  Speeches ,  490,  590, 
604,  625;  scholia  on,  191,  441; 
Letters ,  470,  623  f,  626;  Philoso¬ 
phical  Works ,  265-7,  623,  625  ; 
‘  Academica',  574  n.  5;  ad  Horten- 
sium ,  625;  De  Rep.  569,  574  n.  5  ; 
Somnium  Scipionis ,  227,  266,  490, 
492  n.  4;  Cicero  in  MA,  623-6; 
499,  546;  Gregory  I,  433;  Einhard, 
464;  Servatus  Lupus,  470;  Gerbert, 
489;  John  of  Salisbury,  521;  Roger 
Bacon,  574;  Jacopone  da  Todi  and 
Petrarch,  588 
Cinna,  268 
Cistercians,  502  f 
Cithara ,  43 

Claromontanus ,  Codex  (c.  vi,  in 
Paris  Library),  445 
Classics,  prejudice  against  the,  594-6; 
432,  459  f,  485;  counteracted,  597; 
their  survival  in  France,  Germany, 
Italy  and  England,  602-5 
classicus,  200 
Claudian,  206,  531,  589 
Claudius  Marius  Victor,  234 
claustrum  sine  armario  etc.,  429,  534 
Cleanthes,  147 
Cleisthenes,  Psellus  on,  403 
Clement  of  Alexandria,  323-6;  395 
Clement,  Irish  monk,  463,  465 ;  (2) 
‘Clement  III’,  letter  to  Lanfranc, 
503;  (3)  Clement  IV,  567;  (4)  V, 

584 

Clermont,  231,  646  n 
Climax,  Joannes,  394 
Clitomachus,  164,  264 
Cluni,  485  ;  498,  596,  598  f;  MSS,  602, 
604,  625  f 
Colluthus,  357 

Cologne,  560,  576;  (Quintilian  ms), 

631  . 

Coluccio  Salutato  (d.  1406),  608,  621, 
630 


Columban,  St,  439  f 
Columella,  251,  467 
Cometas,  393 
Comnena,  Anna,  407,  409 
Conceptualism,  506,  509 
Conches,  William  of,  51 1,  517,  519, 
609  f 

Conrad  of  Hirschau,  624;  (2)  C.  von 
Mure,  615,  618  f;  (3)  C.  of  Wurz¬ 
burg,  615,  618 
Consentius,  235,  468 
Constantine  VI,  461,  487;  VII  (Por- 
phyrogenitus),  396,  426 
Constantine  Cephalas,  397  ;  Palaeo- 
kappa,  399;  Manasses,  414;  Her- 
moniacus,  422;  Constantinus  Afri- 
canus,  539 

Constantinople,  379 ;  the  Classics 
studied  there  in  c.  iv,  346;  Santa 
Sophia,  375,  380,  392  ;  the  libraries, 
374,  387;  the  university,  356,  374; 
the  monastery  of  Studion,  384;  C. 
and  the  West,  415;  the  Latin  con¬ 
quest,  415,  426,  547;  the  Turkish 
conquest,  426-8.  See  Byzantine 
Copyists,  207,  220,  252,  254,  599,  602, 
605 

Corbie,  473,  480,  602;  mss,  609,  618, 
625,  628  f,  633  f 
Corippus,  436 

Cormery,  ms  of  De  Oratore  from, 
625 

Cornificius,  -ficiani,  518  f 
Cornutus,  290,  620 
Corvey  (New  Corbie),  467,  473,  486, 
492,  596 ;  (Tacitus),  636 
Crantor,  164,  267 
Craterus,  162 

Crates  of  Mallos,  154-8,  170  f;  School 
of,  158 

Cricklade,  Robert  of,  628 
criticus ,  1 1 

Critobulus  of  Imbros,  422 
Cos,  118 

Cosmas,  (1)  Italian  monk,  383;  (2)  C. 

of  Jerusalem,  384 
Cousin,  Victor,  429,  466,  506,  568 
Cowell,  E.  B.,  211 

Criticism,  (1)  dramatic,  52  f,  61-4; 
(2)  literary,  11,  19 f,  35,  52-7;  61- 
4  5  67-75;  80,82;  99;  109;  129  f; 
156;  177-180;  183;  191;  194-6; 
199;  225 f;  272-86;  292-5;  297 f ; 
312 ;  33 1  f;  346;  360 f;  390 f;  410; 
5^8;  533;  588;  591;  622;  (3) 
textual,  32,  57;  118-43;  r55>  158, 
160;  215 f,  230,  235,  250,  344,  361, 


INDEX. 


657 


571,  583;  (4)  verbal,  32,  no,  128, 
160  f ;  172,  187,  202,  219,  252, 
287-90,  317 

Cues,  626,  635  n.  1 ;  Nicolas  Cusanus, 
628 

Curtius,  Q.,  635 ;  (2)  Curtius  Vale- 
rianus,  252 

Cyclic  poets,  24  f,  372 

Cyprian  (St),  205;  (2)  of  Toulon,  234 

Damascius,  367 

Damascus,  John  of,  383  f,  395,  536, 

553 

Damasus,  library  of  pope,  220 
Damiani,  Petrus,  500 
Dante,  590  f;  243;  his  precursors,  the 
Visions  of  Wettin,  467,  and  Anti- 
Claudianus ,  532;  statistics  of  his 
references  to  Latin  literature  and 
Latin  translations,  591 ;  Dante  and 
Cicero,  625;  Virgil,  610  f;  Horace, 
613;  Ovid,  616;  Lucan,  617;  Sta¬ 
tius,  592  f,  618;  ‘Dionysius  the 
Areopagite  ’,  369 ;  Aristotle,  Avi¬ 
cenna  and  Averroes,  591;  Thomas 
Aquinas  and  Albertus  Magnus,  592  ; 
Siger,  564;  Brunetto  Latini,  590; 
Del  Virgilio,  589 ;  Dante  as  a  pre¬ 
cursor  of  the  Renaissance,  590 
‘  Dark  Ages  ’,  the,  483 ;  594-6  n. 
David  the  Armenian,  338,  365  n.  4, 
475  n*  4 

David  the  ‘Scot’,  535 

De  Causis,  De  Mundo,  De  Plantis ; 

see  ‘  Aristotle'  ad  fin. 

De  Modis  Significandi ,  641  f 
Deinarchus,  278 

Demetrius  Cydones,  473;  (2)  De¬ 
metrius  of  Phaleron,  101,  106; 

(3)  of  Scepsis,  153,  161;  (4)  De¬ 
metrius  trepl  ep/J.r]veias,  312 
Democritus,  26,  67,  92 
Demosthenes,  MSS,  3:9;  Lept.,  292, 
3°5>  353;  6>/.,  De  Chers .,  De  Cor., 
353;  Fals.  Leg.,  294;  Dem.  and 
Ar.  Rhet.,  81,  274;  Dion.  Hal. 
274-7 »  ‘  Longinus  ’  (Dem.  and 

Cicero  etc.),  283-5;  Aristides,  306; 
Libanius,  348  ;  Julian,  353 ;  Isidore 
of  Pelusium,  362;  Choricius,  375; 
‘Lantern  of’,  412;  (2)  Demos¬ 

thenes  Philalethes,  460  n.  1 
Denis,  St,  abbey  of,  415,  471,  474, 
481,  502,  534>  598>  612,  635 
Desiderius,  (1)  of  Vienne,  432;  (2)  of 
Monte  Cassino,  500,  636  n.  10 
Dexippus,  344 


Diagoras  of  Rhodes,  46 
Dialectic,  course  of  reading  in,  528 
n.  9 ;  Alcuin  on,  458 
Dicaearchus,  100 
Diceto,  Radulfus  de,  637  ;  524 
Dictamen ,  582,  648  n.  2 
Diclionarii,  528,  539  f 
Dictys  and  Dares,  623 
Dicuil,  449 
Didascaliae,  64  f 
Didymus,  139  f;  129,  373 
Diodes  of  Magnesia,  333 
Diodorus,  (1)  Siculus,  117,  273;  (2) 
son  of  Val.  Pollio,  317 
Diogenes  Laertius,  332 
Diogenianus,  288,  370 
Diomedes,  206,  218,  453,  467  n.*2 
Dion  Cassius,  407,  426 
Dion  Chrysostom,  291  f;  358,  360,  362 
Dionysius,  Aelius,  316;  (2)  ‘Diony¬ 
sius,  the  Areopagite’,  369,  415, 

474,  5°5»  534,  548,  553,  56°;  (3) 
Dionysius  Exiguus,  250;  (4)  Diony¬ 
sius  of  Halicarnassus,  273  f;  156; 
(5)  Dionysius  Thrax,  7  f ,  43,  137  f, 
355 

Dominicans,  Order  of,  551;  their 
Latin  style,  559;  their  study  of 
Greek,  561,  585;  William  of  Moer- 
beke,  563 ;  Geoffrey  of  Waterford, 
565;  Vincent  of  Beauvais,  557,  and 
Albertus  Magnus,  558,  ignorant  of 
Greek;  Thomas  Aquinas,  interested 
in  Greek,  561  f 
Dominico  Marengo,  501 
Domnulus,  230,  635 
Donatus,  Aelius,  184,  218,  219;  on 
Terence,  470;  Grammar  of,  453, 
458,  462,  468,  500,  574,  638,  649  ; 
Remi(gius)  on,  478,  639 ;  Greek 
version  of,  417,  536;  (2)  Tib. 

Claudius  Donatus,  184;  (3)  Irish 
monk,  463 

Dositheus  (c.  IV  A.D.),  author  of  a 
Greek  version  of  a  Latin  Grammar, 
used  at  St  Gallen  and  Bobbio,  138, 
479  (Teuffel,  §  431,  7) 

Doxopatres,  John,  407 
Drama,  Greek;  early  study  of,  59  f ; 
criticism  of,  52  f,  61-4;  ‘canon’  of, 
130 

Ducas,  422 

Duris,  42,  and  frontispiece 
Dudo  of  St  Quentin  (c.  1020),  502 
Dungal,  440  n.  4,  463  n.  2,  479 
Duns  Scotus,  576  f,  642 
Dunstan  (St),  483,  492,  616 


S. 


42 


658 


INDEX. 


Durham,  ‘  carrels  601 ;  Juvenal,  619 
‘  Dwarfs  on  the  shoulders  of  giants 

51 1 

Eberhard  of  Bethune,  Graecismus , 
640  f;  quoted,  593  n.  10;  Labyrin- 
thus ,  532,  622,  on  Bernard  Sil¬ 
vester,  515 
Ec basis  Captivi,  613 
Eclogues,  589 
Edessa,  374,  385  f 

Edmund  (St),  of  Abingdon,  552,  567, 

57° 

Education  of  Europe,  550;  free  ed., 
462 

Egidio  (Colonna)  da  Roma,  565  n.  3 
Einhtrd  (. Eginhard ),  463  f,  468  f, 
471  f,  480,  623,  634-6 
Einsiedeln,  mss,  614,  620,  626,  634  f; 

monk  or  pilgrim  of,  249,  480 
Eirene,  empress  (797-802),  383,  461 
Ekkehard  I  (d.  973),  Waltharius  of, 
488 ;  II  (d.  990),  Palatums,  487  f ; 
IV  (d.  c.  1060),  Chronicler,  488 
Elegiac  poetry,  Greek,  48-50 
Ellinici  fratres  of  St  Gallen,  479 
Encyclopaedias,  Byzantine,  396;  me¬ 
diaeval,  558  n.  4;  638 
England,  Greek  in,  536,  553  f,  573, 
580;  Latin  Verse  in,  451  f,  454  f, 
524  f ;  Latin  Prose  in,  451,  523  f; 
study  of  the  Elder  Pliny,  628 
Ennius,  168,  1 7 1,  199 
Ennodius,  234,  237 
ens  and  essentia ,  642 
Epaphroditus,  290 
Ephraem  the  Syrian,  597 
Epic  Cycle,  24  f,  372 ;  Epic  poetry, 
early  study  of,  19-40;  ‘canon’  of, 
130 

Epicarpius,  620 
Epictetus,  Simplicius  on,  368 
Epiphanius,  343 
Epsilon,  90,  385 
Epternach,  617  f,  633 
Eratosthenes,  123  f;  5,  114,  136,  160 
Erfurt,  monk  of;  Nicolaus  de  Bibera, 
622 

Eric  ( Heiricus )  of  Auxerre,  473,  478, 
620,  635,  637 

Erigena,  473  n.;  see  Joannes  Scotus 
Ermenrich  of  Ellwangen,  468,  609 
Ermoldus  Nigellus,  465,  586,  615 
Erotianus,  290 
Ethelred  of  Rievaulx,  624 
Etienne  de  Rouen,  597,  630 
Etymologicum,  Florentinum ,  381,  391 ; 


Genuinum ,  391  ;  Gudianum,  404  f ; 
Magnum,  405,  410;  Parvum ,  392; 
Et.  in  iambic  verse,  404 
Etymology,  93,  146  f,  404 
Euclid,  1 16;  MS,  396  ;  transl.,  512,  645 
Eudocia,  356,  370;  Violarium  of 
Pseudo-Eudocia,  399 
Eugenius  III,  (1)  bp  of  Toledo,  445  ; 
(2)  pope,  514 

Eugraphius  on  Terence,  490 
Eumenes  I,  in,  149,  161;  II,  in, 

149  1 5 (coin)  l64 

Euphorion,  163,  271;  Cantores  Eu- 
phorionis,  268 

Euripides  and  the  Epic  Cycle,  25; 
Bacchae  (in  Clement),  325,  (in 
‘  Christus  Patiens  ’),  344,  406 ; 

Electra ,  52,  59;  Medea,  57,  89, 
271;  Phoen.,  534;  Theseus ,  89; 
early  quotations  from,  58,  and 
study  of,  59;  Aristophanes  on,  53- 
55,  57,  60;  Aristotle  on,  63;  Alex¬ 
ander  Aetolus  on,  12 1;  Crantor, 
164;  Lucretius,  268;  ‘Longinus’, 
284  f ;  Julian,  353;  select  plays  of 
Byzantine  age,  394 
Eusebius,  342;  220,  222;  395 
Eustathius,  410  f 
Eustratius  of  Nicaea,  403 
Eutropius,  ed.  of  Vegetius,  230,  635 
Eutyches,  252,  259 
Evesham,  Marleberge  abbot  of,  619  f 
Evroult,  St,  497,  523 
Exeter,  Joseph  of,  526,  618 

Fabius  Pictor,  169 
Favorinus  of  Arles,  301,  333 
Felix,  bp  of  Nantes,  437;  (2)  rhetori¬ 
cian,  229 
Fenestella,  188 
Ferreto,  589 

Festus,  Pompeius,  188,  200,  457,  604 
FitzGerald  and  Ausonius,  210 
Fleming,  William  the,  547,  562,  569  f 
Fleury  (St  Benoit- stir- Loire) ,  Servatus 
Lupus  and,  470;  Abbo  of,  492  f; 
School  of,  648  n.  1 ;  mss  from, 
602  n.  1;  Virgil,  612;  Horace, 
614;  Ovid,  617;  Cic.  de  Sen.,  627; 
Quint.,  630  ;  Caesar,  632  ;  Sallust, 
633;  Livy,  634;  Val.  Max.,  635 
Florence,  Greek  MSS  of  c.  x — xi, 
501 ;  MSS  formerly  in  San  Marco 
(Ovid,  Met.),  617;  (Varro),  627; 
(Seneca,  Trag.),6 28;  (Pliny,  Epp.), 
629 ;  other  MSS  in  Laurentian 
library  {cod.  Amiatinus),  251;  (Cic. 


INDEX. 


659 


Epp),  626;  (Quint.),  631;  (Livy), 
634;  (Tacitus),  636;  fresco  in 
‘Spanish  Chapel’,  259,  644 
Florence  of  Worcester,  523 
Florist  a,  641 

Florus,  634;  (2)  Mestrius  Florus, 
295  n.  2 

fore  for  esse,  in  mediaeval  Latin,  643 
Fortunatianus,  216,  223 
Fortunatus,  Venantius,  436;  234 
Fournival,  Richard  de,  604,  615 
France,  study  of  Greek  in,  c.  xn, 
533  f;  Latin  Verse  in,  529^  647  ; 
France  N.  of  the  Loire,  586,  639 
Franciscans,  at  Oxford  and  Cam¬ 
bridge,  551,  556;  Alexander  of 
Hales  in  Paris,  551;  Grosseteste, 
552  f ;  Bonaventura,  557  ;  Roger 
Bacon,  567;  Duns  Scotus,  576 
Freculphus,  461 
Fredegarius,  435 
Frederic  II,  544-6,  560,  587  n.  2 
Frontinus,  604 

Fronto,  198,  202;  ms  of,  441 
Fulbert,  490,  497,  508,  519 
Fulda,  453  f;  463-7,  469,  483,  502, 
601,  603,  635  f 
Fulgentius,  610  n.  9 
Furcy,  abbey  of  St,  620 

Gaisford,  396,  405 
Gale,  Thomas,  391,  478 
Galen,  322;  in,  386,  479,  491,  512, 
539>  544>  563,  606 

Gallen,  Gallus  and  St,  442 ;  Grimold, 
468;  Notker  Balbulus,  479  f,  612; 
the  Hungarians  at,  483 ;  Gunzo, 
486;  Ekkehard  I,  II,  IV,  487  f; 
Notker  Labeo,  499;  in  c.  x,  502; 
scriptorium,  599;  MSS,  602  f; 
Virgil,  185,  612;  Horace,  614; 
Statius,  Silv., 618;  Juv.,  620;  Silius, 
622;  Cic.  Top.,  626;  Quint.,  631; 
Sallust,  633;  Justin,  635 
Gallus,  Cornelius,  271 
Gap,  Guillaume  de,  415,  534 
Gargilius  Martialis,  251,  619 
Garlandia,  Joannes  de,  527  f;  532, 
572,  641,  648 

Gaul,  early  monasteries,  207,  and 
schools  of  learning  in,  233  f ;  study 
of  Virgil  in,  217;  Latin  Scholar¬ 
ship  in,  Ausonius,  209  f;  Paulinus, 
213;  Sidonius,  230  f;  Consentius, 
235;  victories  of  Clovis,  235; 
St  Maur,  257;  Desiderius  of 
Vienne,  432;  Gregory  of  Tours, 


434;  Fredegarius,  435;  Fortuna¬ 
tus,  436;  ‘Virgilius  Maro’,  437; 
Greek  in  Gaul,  445 
Gautier  de  Chatillon  (or  de  l’Isle, 
Gualterus  ab  Insulis) ;  Alexandreis, 
53°  533>  617,  650  n.  1;  Mora- 

lium  Dogma ,  531,  586 
Gaza,  school  of,  374 
Gellius,  198-200,  202,  471,  574,  610 
Gembloux,  497,  614,  626 
Gennadius,  Torquatus,  216,  619 
Geoffrey  of  Monmouth,  524,  617,  620 
Geoffrey  of  Waterford,  565 
Gerard  of  Cremona,  (1)  the  trans¬ 
lator,  540,  543  f,  548,  569,  606; 
(2)  the  astronomer,  543  n.  4 
Gerbert  of  Aurillac  [Silvester  II), 
489  f;  484,  586,  618,  623,  625 
German  in  c.  ix,  472;  Germany, 
classical  mss  introduced  into,  473, 
(Gunzo),  486,  (Otto  of  Freising), 
512;  Greek  in,  446,  535;  Latin 
Verse  in,  533 
Gerona,  John  bp  of,  445 
Gervase  of  Tilbury,  515,  524 
Gervold  of  St  Wandrille’s,  461 
Gesta  Romanorum,  524 
Ghent,  lost  codex  Blandinius  of 
Horace  from  Benedictine  monastery 
near,  184,  614 

Gilbert  de  la  Porree,  512;  241,  468, 
510,  517,  645  f 
Gildas,  433 

Giles  (Aegidius),  St,  446 
Gilles  de  Paris,  565 
Giraldus  Cambrensis,  522  f;  553, 
610,  647 

Glossa  Ordbiaria  of  the  Vulgate, 
468 

Glossaries,  Graeco-Latin,  445,  480 
Glykas,  chronicler,  414 
Glykys,  grammarian,  421 
Gnipho,  Antonius,  173 
Godfrey  of  Viterbo,  535 
Golias,  513,  525;  Goliardi,  526 
Gondisalvi,  539 
Gorgias,  28,  77,  306 
Graecum  est,  non  legitur ,  583 
Grammar  and  Etymology,  beginnings 
of,  88 ;  Stoics,  144-6 ;  tradition  of 
Greek  Grammar,  425;  definitions 
of,  8,  458,  466;  divisions  of,  323; 
personification  of,  596,  643  n.  4, 
645;  mediaeval  study  of,  638-43; 
Grammar  and  Logic,  639,  647 
Grammarians,  Greek,  137,  312-5, 
318,  354  f,  369;  381,  385,  393, 

42 — 2 


66o 


INDEX. 


412,  419,  425,  479;  573;  Latin, 
172-7;  188  f;  192  f;  197  f;  208, 
21 1,  217  22.5,  258;  493,  577, 

584,  640-2 

Grammatical  terminology,  Greek,  90, 
97,  137  f,  144  f;  Latin,  182 
Grammaticus ,  8,  190;  - ca ,  170 
Greek  literature  etc.,  conspectus  of, 
c.  840-300  B.C.,  18;  300-1  B.C., 
104;  1-300  A.D.,  260;  300-600 

A.D.,  340;  600-1000  A.D.,  378; 

1000-1453  A.  D. ,  400.  Gk.  influence 
in  Latin  literature,  167-9,  263-72 , 
and  literary  criticism,  177  f;  his¬ 
tories  of  Rome  written  by  Romans 
in  Gk.,  169,  264;  Gk.  literary 
criticism,  52  f,  73  f,  80,  82;  273-86; 
Gk.  authors  studied  by  Dion,  295, 
Julian,  352,  Synesius,  362,  Themis- 
tius,  346,  Byz.  age,  394, 426 ;  lost  Gk. 
historians,  426;  Gk.  hymns,  384; 
survival  of  Gk.  in  S.  Italy,  446  f, 
572,  587;  Gk.  in  MA,  438,  440-50, 
459,  461  f,  476,  490;  Joannes 
Scotus,  474-7;  diplomatic,  461, 
491,  and  ecclesiastical  use  of  Gk., 
480  f,  501,  535,  585;  Gk.  monks 
at  Toul  and  Verdun,  484;  Gk. 
lectionary  copied  at  Cologne  ( 1021), 
502;  Gk.  in  c.  xi,  500-2;  c.  xii, 
533—6 ;  translations  from  Gk.  text 
of  Plato,  474,  508,  and  Ar.,  548  f, 
566;  Grosseteste,  553-6;  William 
of  Moerbeke,  563  f ;  Roger  Bacon, 
572  f,  575;  attempts  to  teach  Gk. 
in  c.  xiii-xiv,  576,  580,  584; 
Graeco-Latin  glossaries,  445,  480  ; 
Gk.  in  dictionaries  of  Papias,  501, 
and  Hugutio,  535,  and  in  mediaeval 
grammars,  639,  641  (see  also  Dosi- 
theus ) ;  Gk.  pronunciation,  472,  488, 
49 1 ,  573-  See  Lexicographers 
Gregoras,  Nicephorus,  420-2 
Gregorius  Corinthius,  413 
Gregory  of  (1)  Cyprus,  418;  (2) 
Nazianzus,  343;  (3)  Nyssa,344,536; 
(4)  Tours,  434  f 

Gregory  (I)  the  Great,  431-3,  482; 
III,  447;  V,  484;  VII  (Hilde¬ 
brand),  498;  IX,  545 
Grosseteste,  552  f;  413,  567-9,  572  f 
Grossolano,  535 
Gui  de  Strasbourg,  565 
Guibert  of  Nogent,  533,  636 
Guido,  (1)  of  Arezzo,  612;  (2)  delle 
Colonne,  524,  623  n.  3 
Guigo,  503,  598 


Guillaume,  (1)  le  Breton,  549;  (2) 
see  Gap 

Guiscard,  Robert,  524 
Gunther,  533,  617 
Gunzo  of  Novara,  486,  621 

Hadoardus,  Excerpta  Ciceronis ,  623 
Hadrian,  emp.,302;  (2)  pope  (Adrian) 
I,  447;  IV  (Nicholas  Breakspear), 
520;  (3)  monk,  449  f,  452 
Hales  (Hailes),  551.  See  Alexander  (6) 
Harcourt,  Philip,  625,  630 
Harduin,  of  St  Wandrille’s,  461 
Harpocration,  303,  318-20 
Hartmund  of  St  Gallen,  479 
Hartwin  the  German,  517  n.  3 
Harveng,  Philip  de,  535  n.  2,  607 
Hatto,  bp  of  Basel,  462 
Hauteville,  Jean  de;  Architrenius  of, 
525>  533>  650 

Hebrew,  346,  545,  569,  572,  575; 

Latin  transl.  from,  542,  544  n.  6 
Hecataeus,  (1)  of  Miletus,  83;  (2)  of 
Abdera,  159 

Hedwig  and  Ekkehard  II,  487 
Heidelberg  mss,  397,  607,  612,  619 
Helinand,  534,  649  n.  2 
Heliodorus,  321 
Helladius,  355 
Heloissa  (Heloise),  509,  51 1 
Henri  d’Andely,  514,  649 
Henricus,  (1)  Septimellensis ;  (2) 

Mediolanensis,  524 
Henry  the  Fowler,  483;  (2)  Henry  of 
Huntingdon,  524;  (3)  Henry  II, 
518,  522,  586,  628,  629  n.  1 
Hephaestion,  303,  321 
Heracleides  Ponticus,  98 
Heracleitus,  29,  83,  91 
Heracleon  of  Tilotis,  158 
Herbert  de  Losinga,  595 
Herbord  of  Michelsberg,  624 
Hermannus  Contractus,  499  (Watten- 
bach,  G.  Q.  ^42-7);  (2)  Hermann 
the  Dalmatian,  513,  516,  540  n. ; 
(3)  Hermann  the  German,  546; 
543  n.  4,  554,  569,  571  n.  1 
Hermeias,  367 
Hermippus,  135 
Hermogenes,  (1)  92;  (2)  31 1 
Herodes  Atticus,  302  f,  328 
Herodian,  314;  258,  303,  369 
Herodicus,  161,  398 
Herodotus,  25,  83,  88;  Dion.  Hal. 

on,  274  f;  ‘Plutarch’  on,  298 
Herondas,  106,  115 
Herrad  of  Landsperg,  533,  537,  595! 


INDEX. 


66 1 


Hersfeld,  453,  603 

Hesiod,  22,  37;  120,  127,  131,  141, 
303;  scholia,  409,  419,  420 
Hesychius,  (1)  of  Alexandria,  370; 

288;  (2)  of  Miletus,  371 
Hierocles,  the  Neo-Platonist,  365 
Higden,  Ralph,  524 
Hilary  (St),  (1)  of  Poitiers,  234,  630; 

(2)  of  Arles,  234 
Hildebert,  529,  647 
Hildesheim,  492,  502,  535,  596, 

624  n.  7 
Himerius,  345 
Hincmar,  241,  475,- 604 
Hipparchus,  (1)  son  of  Peisistratus, 
21  f;  (2)  astronomer,  116 
Hippias,  (1)  of  Elis,  27  f,  78;  (2)  of 
Thasos,  28 

Hippocrates,  92,  386,  479,  491,  539, 
544,  563,  606 

Hirschau  (Hirsau),  502,  604;  609 
Hisperica  famina,  438 
History,  mediaeval  ignorance  of,  637 
Holkot,  580 

Homer,  and  the  rhapsodes,  19  f;  So¬ 
lon,  19;  Peisistratus,  20,  159; 
Hipparchus,  2 1 ;  early  interpola¬ 
tions  in,  22;  influence  of,  22-26  ; 
H.  and  the  Sophists,  27-9;  his 
mythology  allegorically  interpret¬ 
ed,  29  f  (cp.  147,  154,  337,  409); 
H.  in  Plato’s  Ion  and  Rep.,  30  f; 
Aristophanes,  Isocrates,  32;  Zol- 
lus,  iopf;  ancient  quotations  from, 
33;  early  ‘editions’  of,  34;  Aris¬ 
totle  on,  35  f ;  Homeric  problems, 
35  f,  147,337;.  Homer’s  theory  of 
poetry,  6 7 ;  his  orators,  76 
The  Alexandrian  age;  Zenodotus, 
1 19,  134;  Rhianus,  120,  132; 
Ptol.  Philopator,  124;  Aristo¬ 
phanes  of  Byzantium,  126,  134; 
Aristarchus,  130  f,  134;  Crates, 
1 54  f ;  Didymus,  1 39  f ;  Aristoni- 
CUS,  1 41 

The  Roman  age;  Lucretius,  268; 
Virgil,  270;  Dion.  Hal.  275; 
‘Longinus’,  283  f;  Dion  Chrys., 
290,  292  f;  Plutarch,  299;  Por¬ 
phyry*  337  5  Julian,  352;  Synesius, 
36 1  f 

The  Middle  Ages;  Tzetzes,  409; 
Eustathius,  410  f;  popular  Gk. 
version  of  Iliad,  422 ;  the  Latin 
Homer,  485,  622  f ;  Roger  Bacon, 
573  f;  Dante,  593 
mss,  34, 119,120, 133  f,  140,374,449 


Honorius  of  Autun,  594,  609,  624, 
638 ;  (2)  pope  Honorius  III,  477,  545 
Horace,  his  Greek  models,  270;  lite¬ 
rary  criticism  in,  183  ;  early  study 
of,  184;  his  curio sa  felicitas,  19 1; 
imitations  or  reminiscences  of,  213, 
231,  241;  quotations  from,  248,485, 
5IO>  555*  591*  613;  mediaeval  mss 
of,  184^  488,  604,  612,  614 
Hosius  of  Cordova,  445 
Hoveden,  Roger  of,  524 
Hrabanus,  see  Rabanus 
Hroswitha,  486  f,  607  f 
Hucbald,  481 

Hugo  and  Leo,  535;  (2)  Hugo  of  St 
Victor,  534,  644  n.  3;  (3)  Hugo  of 
Trimberg,  608  n.  2,  613,  622 
Hugutio,  535,  572,  593*  64° 
Hungarians,  incursions  of,  483^  492 
Hyginus,  159;  187 

Hymns,  Greek,  362,  384;  Latin,  437, 
462,  500,  530 

Hypatia,  107,  357,  360,  363  f,  402 
Hypereides,  284  f 

Iamblichus,  344,  357,  364 
Iconoclastic  decrees,  383,  446  f 
Ignatius,  (1)  St,  his  Epistles ,  555; 
(2)  patriarch,  308;  (3)  grammarian, 

393 

Ilium,  154,  291;  Julian  at,  352 
Immed  of  Paderborn,  498 
Ina  (Ine),  450 
Incidis  in  Scylla?n  etc.,  531 
Innocent  III,  416 
‘instance’,  642 
Integumenta ,  447  n.  1 
Ion,  (1)  of  Ephesus,  30;  (2)  of  Chios, 
285,  383 

Iordanes,  246,  433 

Ireland,  early  knowledge  of  Greek  in, 
438,  448  (G.  T.  Stokes  in  Proc. 
Royal  Irish  Acad.,  Feb.  1892,  179- 
202) ;  state  of  learning  in,  451  n.  4, 
458,  473  ;  Giraldus  on,  522  f 
Irish  professors,  generosity  of,  452 ; 
Irish  monks  on  the  Continent,  439  f, 
442,  448  f,  463,  484;  Irish  MSS  at 
St  Gallen,  479 
Irnerius,  582 

Isaeus,  Dion.  Hal.  on,  276  f 
Isidore  (St),  (1)  of  Pelusium,  362; 
(2)  of  Seville,  442  f;  254,  393,  458, 
466  f,  467  n.  1,  479,  597,  609,  614, 

638  r  t.- 

Isocrates  on  Greek  poets,  32  f;  his 
style,  78;  Aristotle  on,  81;  Dion. 


662 


INDEX. 


Hal.  on,  276  f;  284;  later  influence 

of,  353,  388,  393 
Istrus  of  Paphos,  123,  304 
Italus,  John,  403,  501 
Italy  (mediaeval),  Greek  in,  446-8; 
c.  xi,  500  f;  c.  xii,  535  f ;  c.  xm, 
572  n.  3;  c.  xiv,  583  f,  587;  Latin 
Verse  in,  524  (cp.  Gaspary,  Iial. Lit. 
i  1-49) ;  survival  of  literary  studies 
in,  499;  causes  of  the  Renaissance 
in,  587 

Ivo  of  Chartres,  (1)  bp,  519;  (2) 
teacher,  525 

Jackson,  H.,  quoted,  95,  562 
Jacob  of  Edessa,  386,  404 
Jacobus,  (1)  Clericus  de  Venetia,  507, 
535 ;  (2)  de  Benedictis,  530  (, Jaco - 
pone  da  Todi ,  588) 

James,  M.  R.,  502  n.  1,  545  n.  3,  etc. 
Jandun  (in  Ardennes),  Jean  de,  581 
Jebb,  Sir  Richard,  2of,  26,  48 n.,  55  n., 
76,  120,  153,  154  n. 

Jerome,  St,  219-222 ;  342,  574, 594, 597 
Jews;  their  services  to  learning,  540, 
542,  545,  569;  their  study  of  Aris¬ 
totle  and  of  Neo-Platonism,  542 
Joannes,  (1)  Lydus,  380;  (2)  Mauro- 
pus,  404;  (3)  Hispalensis,  540  n.; 
(4)  ben  David,  339;  (5)s Garlandia 
Joannes  Scotus  (Erigena),  ‘John  the 
Scot’,  473  f;  225  n.  3,  240,  369, 
505,  ,548,  586,  623 

Johannitius  (Honein  Ibn  Ishak),  386 
John,  (1)  the  Geometer,  398;  (2)  the 
Grammarian,  385 ;  (3)  the  Saracen, 
520,  534.  See  also  Damascus , 
Doxopatres  (or  Siceliotes),  Italus , 
Scylitzes\  and  Basingstoke,  Gerona , 
Rochelle ,  Vandieres 
John  of  Salisbury,  5 1 7  etc.  ;s  ^Salisbury 
J ohnson,  Dr  Samuel, and  Macrobius,  227 
Jonson,  Ben,  328,  350 
Joseph,  (1)  of  Sicily,  384;  (2)  of  Exe¬ 
ter,  526,  618 
Josephus,  289 

Jourdain,  A.  and  C.,  507  n. 

Jowett,  quoted,  70,  93,  94 
Juba  II,  287,  300 

Julian,  (1)  ‘the  Apostate’,  350-3;  205, 
34L  374>4°8;  (2)  bp  of  Toledo,  445 
Julius  Africanus,  342,  390;  (2)  Roma- 
nus,  201;  (3)  Rufinianus,  216;  (4) 
Victor,  216 
Justin,  272,  635 

Justinian,  260,  368,  375,  447,  583 
Justinus  of  Lippstadt,  533 


Juvenal,  196;  in  MA,  619!;  485  f, 
515  n.  2,  555  f 
Juvencus,  216,  234 

Kilwardby,  abp,  561,  641 
Kosbein,  Henry,  564;  563  n.  6 

Lactantius,  205,  603,  609 
Lacydes,  149 
laicus,  Balbi  on,  640  n.  2 
Lambert  of  Hersfeld,  498,  624,  634 
(Wattenbach,  G.  Q.  ii6  97  f ) ;  (2) 
author  of  Floridum,  638 
Lamprocles,  43 
Lanfranc,  497,  502  f,  508 
Langres,  604 

Language,  origin  of,  92  f,  98 
Laon,  480,  646  n. 

Lascaris,  Constantine,  382,  573 
Latin  literature  etc.,  conspectus  of, 
c.  300-1  B.C.,  166;  1-300  A.D., 
186;  300-600  A. I).,  204;  600-1000 
A.D.,  430;  1000-1200  A.D.,  496; 
1200-1400  A.D.  538.  The  Latin 
Classics,  their  survival  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  597-637  ;  the  Clas¬ 
sics  in  Aldhelm,  451 ;  Bede,  452  ; 
Alcuin,  459;  Theodulfus,  462; 
Einhard,  464  ;  Walafrid  Strabo, 
467  ;  Ermenrich,  468  ;  Servatus 
Lupus,  469  f;  Joannes  Scotus,  476; 
Eric  and  Remi,  478;  Ratherius, 
484;  Gerbert,  489  f ;  Luitprand, 
491 ;  ^Elfric,  492;  Leo  Marsicanus 
and  Alfanus,  500;  Bernard  of 
Chartres,  520;  Bernard  Silvester, 
515;  John  of  Salisbury,  520  f; 
Peter  of  Blois,  522  ;  Giraldus,  523 ; 
Neckam,  526;  Joannes  de  Gar- 
landia,  528;  Gautier  and  Alain  de 
l’Isle,  530  f;  Eberhard,  532;  Gun¬ 
ther,  533;  Grosseteste,  355;  Vin¬ 
cent  of  Beauvais,  55 7  f ;  Roger 
Bacon,  5  74  f ;  Richard  of  Bury, 
580;  Mussato,  589;  Dante,  591-3 
Dictionaries ;  ^Elfric,  493 ;  Papias, 
501,  639;  Balbi,  584,  640;  Hu- 
gutio,  535,  572,  593,  640 ;  Joannes 
de  Garlandia,  528.  Grammars, 
640-2;  Donatus,  184;  Priscian, 
258  f;  ^Elfric,  493,  495;  Caesar 
the  Lombard,  584.  Latin  Prose 
in  MA,  451 ;  c.  xii-xm,  521-4; 
560;  642;  Latin  verse,  c.  xi,  498; 
c.  xii-xm,  524-33,  647;  pro¬ 
nunciation  of  Latin,  434^  458,492 
Laurus  Quirinus,  427 


INDEX. 


663 


Learning,  seats  of,  in  the  Alexandrian 
age,  105  f,  148  f,  159-164.  See 
also  Schools 

Leo  III,  the  ‘Isaurian’,  383,  387,396; 
V,  the  Armenian,  383,  385 ;  VI, 
the  Wise,  388,  396;  popes  Leo  II, 
446;  and  IV,  447 

Leo,  (1)  the  Byzantine,  388;  (2)  Dia- 
conus,  398;  (3)  Marsicanus  (Osti- 
ensis),  500;  (4)  the  mathematician, 
386;  (5)  the  philosopher,  394;  (6) 
of  Naples,  415 
Leon  Magentinus,  421 
Leontius  of  Byzantium,  383 
Letters  of  the  Greek  alphabet,  87, 
572;  classified,  89,  275 
Letter-writing,  art  of,  582  n.  3,  648 
Levi  ben  Gerson,  542 
Lexicographers,  Greek,  315-21,  370  f, 
391,  399,  419 

Lexicons,  Greek,  404-6;  Latin,  188, 
208,  639  f;  501,  527  f,  535,  584 
Libanius,  347 f,  352  (ed.  Forster,  1903-) 
Libraries,  at  Athens  etc.,  86,  302,  412; 
Alexandria,  107  f,  110-4,409;  Per- 
gamon,  149^  Antioch,  163  ;  Rome, 

157  l87>  !98-  22°’  23G  238»  249> 

273,  433 1  in  Gaul,  217,  232;  Cassio- 
dorus,  251 ;  Pamphilus,  342 ;  Julian, 
353;  Synesius,  358;  Isidore,  443L 
Byzantine  etc.,  387,  411,  416;  me¬ 
diaeval,  606-37  passim',  Bobbio, 
440  f;  St  Gallen,  442,  479,  599; 
Liguge,  445;  York,  454;  Fulda, 
466;  Hildesheim,  492;  Nonantula, 
483;  Sainte  Chapelle,  Paris,  557; 
St  Albans,  580,  60 1;  Verona,  603; 
Richard  of  Bury’s,  605 
Liege,  448,  485,  604,  635 
Limoges,  abbey  of  St  Martial  at,  612, 
620,  627 

Literary  Criticism,  see  Criticism 
litterator ,  -lus,  6,  8 
•Livy,  Polybius  and,  272;  recension  of, 
215;  facsimile  from  MS  of,  236;  in 
MA,  633  f;  433,  498,  590 
Lobon  of  Argos,  333 
Logic,  study  of,  508,  512,  644;  criti¬ 
cised,  517  f,  526,  535;  logic  and 
grammar,  639,  649;  text-books  by 
Psellus,  403,  578,  Petrus  Hispanus, 
578,  and  Buridan,  581 
Lollianus,  318 
Lombards,  501  f,  584,  649  f 
London;  British  Museum,  coins,  102, 
142,  164;  MSS,  570  n.  2-5,  576  n.  1, 
and  607-32  passim 


Longinus,  Cassius,  33 1  f 
‘Longinus’  On  the  Sublime ,  282-6 
Lorsch,  mss  from,  461,  486,  603,  620, 
624,  627  f,  634 

Lothair  I,  emp.  (d.  855),  448,  463, 

465  ;  II,  king  of  Lorraine  (d.  869), 

466 

Louis  I,  the  Pious  (Le  Debonnaire), 
462,  465,  474;  II,  the  Stammerer 
(Le  Begue),  481;  IX  (Saint),  557 
Louvain,  abbey  of  Parc  near,  632 
Lovato,  588 

Lucan,  in  MA,  617  f;  515,  530,  533, 
589 

Lucca,  619  n.  5 

Lucian,  307  f;  320,  394,  491 

Lucilius,  171,  264 

Lucretius,  168,  268;  in  MA,  608  f; 

443,  468,  515  n.  2,  532  n.  10,  602 
Luctatius  Placidus,  235 
Ludolf  of  Luchow,  641 
Luitprand,  (1)  king  of  the  Lombards, 
238;  (2)  bp  of  Cremona,  491,  624 
n.  1 

Lycophron,  116,  121,  409 
Lycurgus,  (1)  Spartan  legislator,  20; 

(2)  Attic  orator,  57 
Lyons  (1274),  council  of,  563 
‘  Lyric’,  43  ;  lyricus ,  265  n.  1  ;  Greek 
lyric  poetry,  divisions  of,  47  ; 

‘  canon  ’  of,  1 30  ;  early  study  of, 
41-50 ;  in  Himerius,  345 
Lysias,  Dion.  Hal.  on,  276?;  Caecilius 
on,  282,  284 

Mabillon,  441,  598  etc. 

Macarius  of  Fleury,  534 
Macaulay  and  Ozanam,  587  n.  7 
Macharius  (Ricbod  of  Trier),  459 
Macrobius,  224—7,  47°>  477’  610 
Mahaffy,  J.  P.,  85  n.  2,  106  f,  1 1 7  f , 

!33’  I52  n-  3’  293  n-»  296  etc- 
Mai,  Cardinal,  397,  492  n.  4,  610  n.  3, 
626  n.  2 

Maimonides,  542 
Malalas,  382 

Malmesbury,  450,  476 ;  William  of, 

45C  453>  474’  524j  529’  623’  636 
Manfred,  546  n.  4,  547 
Manilius,  442,  621  n.  3 
Manitius,  606  n.  4,  610,  614  n.  1,  636 
n.  4 

Manuscripts,  facsimiles  from,  87,  185, 
203,  236,  260,  326,  338,  376,  428, 
495’  5°3>  5l6’  566;  references  to, 

395»  4G>  427>  470  f’  49°’  543’  559> 
and 597 -6 37 passim.  Seealso papyri. 


664 


INDEX. 


Libraries ,  Cambridge ,  Oxford ,  Lon¬ 
don  etc,,  and  names  of  ancient 
authors  and  mediaeval  monasteries 
Map  (Mapes),  Walter,  525,  619,  629 
Mara,  William  de,  571  n.  3 
Marbod,  529,  609 
Marcellinus,  373 
Marchesini  of  Reggio,  640 
Marculf,  494  n.  1 
Marius  Mercator,  304 
Marsh,  Adam,  556,  567 
Martial,  196,  216,  619 
Martianus  Capella,  228  f ;  6,  253, 
474-6,  478  f,  485,  488,  499,  531, 
533,  646  n. 

Martin,(i)  of  Bracara,  435  ;  (2)  Martin 
I,  446 

Matthew  of  Venddme,  514,  530,  647 
Mauropus,  Joannes,  404;  174  n.  4 
Maurus,  257,  465  ;  St  Maur-sur-Loire, 
257  J  (2)  abp  of  Ravenna,  446 
Mavortius,  185,  229,  614 
Maximianus,  435 

Maximus,  (1)  Tyrius,  306  ;  (2)  Con¬ 
fessor,  382 

Mayor,  J.  E.  B.,  234,  527  f 
Media  vita  in  morte  sumus ,  480 
Meinwerk,  498 
Meleager,  398 

‘  Melic’,  poets,  early  study  of,  43-7 
Menander,  105,  130,  298,  402  ;  (2) 
Rhet.,  331 ;  (3)  Protector,  380 
Merton,  Walter  de,  556 
Merula,  440 
Methodius,  384 
Metrodorus,  30 
Metz,  446,  485,  602 
Meung,  514  n.  3  ;  Jean  de,  532 
Michael,  (1)  Attaliates,  407  ;  (2)  of 
Ephesus,  403  ;  (3)  Italicus,  414  ;  (4) 
‘  Modista  ’  of  Marbais,  640  f,  642  ; 
(5)  ‘the  Stammerer’,  474;  (7)  Scot, 
544-6 

Michel,  Mont-St-,  625 
Middle  Ages  in  the  West,  429-650; 
dates,  600-1000  A.D.,  430 ;  1000- 
1200  A.D.,  496;  1200-1400  A. D.,  538 
Milan,  Ambrosian  library  at,  441, 607, 
630  f 

Millenary  year,  493  ;  Alfred’s,  482 

Milton,  60  f,  369,  532 

Mimnermus,  48 

Minucianus,  331 

Modena,  479 

modernus ,  255 

Modestus,  187 

Modistae ,  641  f 


Moerbeke,  William  of,  563-6 
Moeris,  318 
Moissac,  602  f,  632 
Montaigne,  165,  299  f 
Monte  Cassino,  256  f,  260,  500,  539, 
560,  602-4,  627-9,  636 
Montpellier,  606;  MSS,  612,  617,  620 
Morlai  (Morley),  Daniel  de,  543 
Moschopulus  (Mo<rxo7rou\os),  419 
Moschus,  1 15 
Munro,  267,  272 

Muratori,  440C  524m  3,  535  n.  ioetc. 
Murbach,  602  f,  609 
Musaeum ;  at  Alexandria,  105;  An¬ 
tioch,  163  ;  scriptorium  at  Tours, 
459,  466 
Musaeus,  357 
Mussato,  588  f 

Naevius,  169,  171,  178 
Namatianus,  603  n.  4 
‘  Naso 5  ( Muadwin ,  bp  of  Autun),  586, 
615 

Neanthes,  149 

Neckam,  Alexander,  526  f,  536,  648 
Nemesianus,  604 

Neo-Platonism  and  Neo-Platonists 
(precursors,  306),  334  f,  357-69, 
4*4’  5°5>  541  f 

Neoptolemus  of  Parion,  123,  178,  271 
Nepos,  Cornelius,  269,  632 
Newburgh,  William  of,  524 
Nicaeus,  620 

Nicander,  116,  152,  270  f 
Nicanor,  315 

Nicephorus  I,  emp.,  388 ;  (2)  patriarch, 
385 ;  (3)  monk  and  philosopher, 
393  J  (4)  Basilakes,  414;  (5)  Bryen- 
nius,  407,  409;  (6)  Chumnus,  418  f; 
(7)  Gregoras,  420-2 
Nicholas,  (1)  secretary  of  Bernard  of 
Clairvaux,  595,  600 ;  (2)  of  St 
Albans,  553  f 
Nicolas  d’Autrecour,  565 
Nicolaus;  (1)  of  Methone,  414;  (2) 
Damascenus,  571  ;  (3)  de  Bibera, 
622  n.  6  ;  (4)  de  Orbellis,  644  n.  i 
Nicomachi,  recension  of  Livy  by  the, 
215  f ifacs.  236,  634 
Nicomachus  Flavianus,  Virius,  521  f 
Nigidius  Figulus,  181 
Nisibis,  School  of,  249,  386 
Nominalism,  239,  466,  506  ;  Nomi¬ 
nalists,  Roscellinus,  508  ;  William 
of  Ockham,  578  ;  Buridan,  581 
Nonantola,  483 
Nonius  Marcellus,  208 


INDEX. 


665 


Nonnus,  356 

Normans  in  France,  480  f,  483 ;  in 
England,  498 ;  at  Thessalonica,  41 1 ; 
in  S.  Italy,  447 

Notker  of  St  Gallen,  (1)  the  Stam¬ 
merer,  Balbulus ,  479  f,  612  ;  (2) 
Labeo ,  499,  508 
Novalesa,  603 
Numenius,  322,  324  f 

Ockham  (Occam),  William  of,  578 ;  507 
Odo  (St),  (1)  abbot  of  Cluni,  485  ; 

(2)  abp  of  Canterbury,  450,  486 
Olympiodorus,  the  elder,  365  ;  the 
younger,  365,  367  f 
Omicron  and  0?nega,  90 
Omons,  Imago  Mmidi  of,  638 
Onomacritus,  22 
Onomatopoeia,  94,  146 
Opilius,  Aurelius,  173 
Ordericus  Vitalis,  523 
orichalcum ,  529,  572 
Origen,  334,  594 
Orion,  318,  370  n.  5 
Orleans,  462,  602  ;  school  of,  647-50 
Orosius,  112  f,  207,  364,  482 
Orthography,  171,  252,  254,  458 
Orus,  318,  370  n.  5 
Osberni,  Glossarium,  607,  618 
Osnabriick,  capitular  for  foundation 
of  school  at,  462  (spurious,  Watten- 
bach,  G.  Q.  i6  159,  1) 

Oswald  (St),  abp  of  York,  492,  617 
Osymandyas,  117 

Otho  I,  484,  487,  491  ;  II,  484,  491  ; 

III,  242,  484,  490-2 
Otho  of  Lomello,  484  n.  1  ( Chron . 

Novalic.  in  Pertz,  Mon.  vii  106) 
Otto  of  Freising,  512,  535 
Ouen,  St,  445 

Ovid,  271  ;  269  ;  in  MA,  614-7  ;  417, 
477  n.  1,  500,  555,  575,  589  f 
Oxford  (1167),  606;  Dominicans  at, 
551;  Franciscans  at,  5 56;  early 
study  of  Aristotle,  570,  575  ;  re¬ 
citations  by  Giraldus,  523;  Michael 
Scot  (?),  546 ;  Grosseteste,  552  f,  556, 
567;  Roger  Bacon,  567  f,  573; 
Duns  Scotus,  576  f ;  Greek  and 
Hebrew  professorships,  585  ;  mss, 

376,  395  556,  57o  n.  2,  573, 

608,  6 r 6,  621  ;  Merton  Coll.,  556  ; 
Oriel,  598  ;  dates  of  other  early 
Colleges,  538 

Pachymeres,  422 
Pacificus,  603 


Pacuvius,  169  f,  199 
Paderborn,  school  of,  498 
Padua,  univ.,  606 ;  584,  588 
Palaeologi,  scholars  under  the,  416  f 
Palaeologus,  Manuel,  423 
Palaemon,  Q.  Remmius,  188 
Palamas,  Gregorius,  423 
Palermo,  544  f,  565 
Palimpsests,  441,  599,  626  f 
Palladas,  363 

Pamphilus  and  Pamphila,  288 
Panaetius,  158,  163,  264,  2 66 
Panathenaea,  21,  162 
Pandects,  583 
Pantaenus,  323 
Papias,  501,  572,  639 
papyri,  66,  85  f,  103,  108,  in,  133  f 
Papyrianus,  252 
Parchment,  in,  556 
Parian  Marble,  the,  116 
Paris,  ‘  the  paradise  of  the  world  ’, 
605  ;  Julian  at,  351 ;  Norman  siege 
of,  481  ;  schools  of,  485,  606,  644; 
university  of  ( paradisus  deliciarum , 
527)>  528,  546,  551,  582,  644; 
study  of  Aristotle  at,  549  f,  585  ; 
Council  of  (1210),  549  ;  Dominicans 
and  Franciscans,  551  ;  Greek  col¬ 
lege  of  Philip  Augustus,  416;  Notre- 
Dame,  551,  626,  631  ;  Rue  de 
Maitre  Albert ,  558 ;  Rue  de  Fouarre , 
564;  Sainte  Chapelle,  557;  St 
Germain-des-Pres,  257,  476,  481, 
630;  Sorbonne,  581,  585,  605,  625, 
648;  Paris  in  relation  to  Chartres, 
648,  and  Orleans,  649 
Paris,  Matthew,  413,  524,  553  f 
Parthenius,  270  f 

Parts  of  speech,  90,  97,  131,  143, 
148,  274,  313,  650 
Pascal  I,  447 

Paschasius  Radbertus,  473,  589,  623 
Patrick,  St,  438 
Paul  I,  447,  474 

Paul  (St),  Carinthian  abbey  of,  629 
Paulinus,  213,  234 

Paulus  Diaconus,  456  ;  188,  604,  612, 
618  (Wattenbach,  G.  Q.  i6  163-71) 
Paulus  Silentiarius,  380 
Pausanias,  304  ;  (2)  the  Atticist,  316 
Pavia,  243  n.  3,  440  ;  school  at,  448, 

463*  479 
Pediasimus,  421 

Peisistratus  and  Homer,  20  f,  159 
Pelagius,  364 
Pella,  162 

Pepin-le-Bref,  447,  474 


666 


INDEX. 


Pepys  ms  of  Bernard  Silvester,  5i6n. 
pereant  qui  nostra  etc.  ,219 
Pergamon  and  its  rulers  (dates,  104), 
148-52  ;  the  Library,  149-51  ;  113, 
187,  200;  irlvaKes ,  156;  school  of, 
161 ;  Pergamon  and  Alexandria, 
hi,  159-62;  Pergamon  and  Rome, 
152,  157  f,  187,  220 
Pericles,  76 
Peronne,  442  n. 

Persius,  191,  216,  486,  621 
Peter  of  Blois,  522,  561,  647;  (2)  of 
Pisa,  456;  (3)  Peter  Lombard,  384, 
560  ( Lumbardus ,  525) ;  (4)  Peter  the 
Venerable,  51 1,  530,  540  n.,  596 
Peterborough,  plundering  of,  498 
Petrarch,  224,  259,  580,  587,  608, 
626,  650 

Petronius,  191,  637 
Petrus  (1)  (de)  Riga,  530;  (2)  Elias, 
517  m  3;  Helias,  525,  577,  640  f ; 
(3)  Hispanus,  403  n.  5,  578;  (4) 
De  Vineis,  546  n.  2 
Phaedrus,  484,  621 
Phalaris,  393 
Pheidias,  170,  293 
Philargyrius,  235 

Philemon,  (1)  162  ;  (2)  gram.,  123 
Philes,  Manuel,  421 
Philetas  of  Cos,  105,  118 
Philippus  of  Thessalonica,  161,  398 
Philo  Judaeus,  289,  325 
Philochorus,  162 

‘  philologer  ’,  ‘  philologist  ’,  ‘  philo¬ 

logy  ’,  2;  philologus ,  5,  11,  182, 
philologia ,  5,11;  modern  philology, 

1 1  f 

Philon  ofByblus,  Herennius,  304;  142 
Philoponus,  114,  367,  369 
Philostratus  I,  327  ;  II,  III,  329 
Philoxenus  of  Alexandria,  224  n.  1  ; 
290 

Phocylides,  49 
Phoebammon,  31 1 

Photius,  388  f ;  Bibliotheca ,  389 ; 
literary  criticism  in,  390  f ;  Letters , 
392  ;  Lexicons ,  391  f,  404  f 
Phrantzes,  422 

Phrynichus,  (1)  dramatist,  53;  (2) 
Atticist,  317 
Phrynis,  44 

Pierre  (1)  de  Chantre,  534;  (2)  la 
Casa,  565 

Pietro  d’  Abano  (of  Padua),  584 
Pindar,  23,  45-47;  127,  136;  285; 
410,  419-21;  (2)  ‘  Pindarus  The- 
banus’,  623 


Pisa,  456,  535,  583,  606 ;  S.  Caterina, 
pi.  facing  560 
Pisander,  cyclic  poet,  270 
Pisides,  Georgius,  380 
Pitt,  283  n. 

Planudes,  417  f;  242 
Plataea,  298,  428 

Plato,  on  Homer,  30  f,  Solon,  48  f, 
Antimachus,  39 ;  on  the  study 
(40  fj  and  criticism  of  poetry, 
68  f ;  on  the  drama,  61  f,  on 
rhetoric,  79,  on  compositions  in 
prose,  84 ;  on  classification  of 
letters,  89,  and  words,  90  f,  and 
on  the  origin  of  language,  92  f ; 
quotations  from  Homer,  33, 
Pindar,  45,  Theognis,  49,  Archi¬ 
lochus,  50,  Aeschylus,  58,  and 
Euripides,  59 ;  early  mss,  85 ; 
division  of  his  dialogues  into  ‘  tri¬ 
logies ’,  128;  Crat.  92  f,  404, 
Gorg.  79  ;  Lon ,  30,  68  ;  Phaedo 
(ms),  85,  87,  108  ;  Phaedrus,  7 9; 
Laws,  41,  84  ;  Protag.  4 1  ;  Rep. 
31,  69  ;  Timaeus,  48 
In  Cicero,  265  f ;  Dion.  Hal.  275, 
277;  ‘Longinus’,  283!;  Dion 
Chrys.,  294;  Plutarch,  295!; 
Aristides,  305  f;  Maximus  Tyrius, 
306  f ;  Lucian,  309  ;  Apuleius, 
310  ;  Galen,  322  ;  Clemens  Alex., 
324;  Eusebius,  343;  Synesius, 
359,  362 ;  lexicon  of  Timaeus, 
334;  Neo-Platonists,  334-7;  350 f, 
357*  362*  364-9  5  Boethius,  241  ; 
Commentators  on,  321  f,  366-8; 
Gorg.  359,  368,  Parm.  3  66, 
Phaedo  368,  Phaedrus  367,  Phile- 
bus  368,  Rep.  359,  366,  Timaeus , 
241*  322,  357*  366  f 
Mediaeval  study  of  (1)  in  the  East. 
Oriental  versions  of,  385  ;  Byz. 
study  of,  402  ;  Photius,  389,  393  ; 
Arethas,  395;  Psellus,  401  f,  418, 
422  f;  facsimile  from  Bodleian 
MS>  376,  395'*  (2)  in  the  West, 
5°7>  SIC  55 7;  Luitprand,  491; 
Abelard,  509 ;  Bernard  of  Char¬ 
tres  and  William  of  Conches, 
51 1  ;  Theodoric  of  Chartres,  513, 
and  Bernard  Silvester  of  Tours, 
515;  John  of  Salisbury,  520; 
Alain  de  l’lsle,  532  ;  William  of 
Auvergne,  552 ;  Roger  Bacon, 
574,  582  ;  influence  of  the  theory 
of  ‘ideas’,  505,  510,  519,  521, 
532  ;  transl.  of  Meno  508;  Phaedo 


INDEX. 


667 


508,  552,  574  ;  Timaeus  (Joannes 
Scotus,  474),  Chalcidius  (cent, 
iv)  486,  489,  507,  509-11,  513, 

5*5>  S3*.  552,  574>  591 
Plautus,  1 69 ;  Fabulae  Varronianae, 
174  n.;  in  MA,  607 ;  484,  521,  610; 
mss  607  ;  441 

Pliny,  (r)  the  elder,  176,  192;  in 
MA,  628;  602,  605;  (2)  the  younger, 
195  ;  in  MA,  629 
Plotinus,  335 
Plotius  Gallus,  173 

Plutarch,  295-300  ;  quoted,  32,  59 ; 
(2)  Plutarchus,  the  Neo-Platonist, 

364 

‘  Poeta  Saxo’,  480 

Poetry,  criticism  of,  (Athenian)  67-75  > 
(Roman)  177  f,  1 83  f,  191;  Dion. 
Hal.  275  f;  ‘Longinus’,  283  f ;  see 
also  Criticism,  literary .  Poetry  and 
Sculpture,  293 

Poets,  mediaeval  prejudice  against 
classical,  533,  537,  594-6  ;  lists  of, 
622  ;  528  n.  7,  532  f 
Poggio  (1416),  192,  442,  618,  621  f, 
631 

Poitiers,  William  of,  502  (1020 — c. 
1089) 

Polemon,  (1)  of  Athens,  164;  (2)  of 
Ilium,  152,  160-2,  304 
Pollio  on  Sallust  and  Cicero,  180; 

(2)  Valerius  Pollio,  317 
Pollux,  320  ;  303,  308 
Polybius,  1 1 7,  160,  170,  264,  272  ; 

Byz.  excerpts  from,  397,  426 
Pompeius  (Maurus),  commentum  artis 
Donati,  235,  462 
Pompeius  Trogus,  272,  574,  637 
Pompilius  Andronicus,  173 
Pomponius,  (1)  Marcellus,  187;  (2) 
Mela,  230 
Pomposa,  603 
Pope,  21 1  n.  1,  285 
Porcius  Licinus,  172 
Porphyrio,  184,  200 
Porphyry,  336  f ;  his  Introduction  to 
the  Categories ,  336,  expounded  by 
Ammonius,  367,  and  David  the 
Armenian  ( facsimile ,  338),  365; 
transl.  by  Victorinus,  239  ;  transl. 
and  expounded  by  Boethius,  239, 
253.  503-7  5  Eric  on,  478 ;  John 
of  Vandieres,  484;  Gerbert,  490; 
Abelard,  509  f;  528  n.  9 ;  Homeric 
Questions ,  36,  337  ;  the  Seven  Arts 
(Tzetzes),  408 
Porson,  391,  396 


Poseidonius,  163  f,  265  f,  269,  272 
praeterpropter ,  202 
Praxiphanes,  7,  100 
Priscian,  258  f;  his  authorities,  314; 
in  MA,  (Alcuin)  458,  (Rabanus 
Maurus)  466;  468,  479,  485,  574^ 
638,  640  f,  649 ;  quoted,  642 ; 

‘  Grammar  and  Priscian’,  outside 
Chartres  cathedral,  645 
Probus,  184,  192-4,  199 
Proclus,  (1)  Neo-Platonist,  365-7 ; 
transl.  of  his  ‘  Theological  Ele-  • 
ments’,  563,  facs.  566  ;  (2)  author 
of  Chrestomathy,  37 1  f 
Procopius,  (1)  rhetorician,  of  Gaza, 
374,  414  ;  (2)  historian,  of  Caesarea, 

379 

Prodicus,  78 

Promptorium  Parvulorum ,  640  n.  2 
Prose,  Athenian  study  of,  76  f,  82  f ; 
place  of  prose  in  Athenian  edu¬ 
cation,  84 

Protagoras,  27,  78,  91 

Prudentius,  488 ;  (2)  bp  of  Troyes, 

475 

Priim,  470,  602  ;  Regino  of,  480,  484 
Psellus,  401  f;  381,  578 
Ptolemies,  rulers  of  Egypt ;  dates  of 
accession,  104;  I,  II,  III,  159; 

I  ( Soter ),  ior,  105,  118,  (portrait) 
143;  II  [Philadelphia),  ior,  105-8, 
ill,  1 15,  1 18,  (portrait)  143;  III 
or  IX  ( Euergetes  I  or  II),  58,  in  ; 
IV  [Philopator),  124;  V  [Epi- 
phanes ),  in  ;  IX  ( Euergetes  II  i.e. 
Physcon ),  135,  160 

Ptolemy,  (1)  of  Ascalon,  289;  (2) 
Chennus,  304;  (3)  Claudius,  304; 
his  Almagest ,  540,  542  f ;  his  Plani¬ 
sphere ,  513 

punctuation,  97,  125  f,  315,  459 
Pydna,  157,  169  f 
Pythagoras,  29,  91,  592 

Quadrivium ,  643 
quatenus  for  ut ,  643 
Querolus ,  521 
qui  nescit  pai'tes  etc.,  643 
Quintilian,  an analogist,  177;  grammar 
and  literary  criticism  in,  194;  202  ; 
278  ;  on  ens  and  essentia ,  642  ;  in 
MA,  630  f ;  Servatus  Lupus,  470  ; 
Bernard  of  Chartres,  519;  Etienne 
de  Rouen,  597 ;  mss  { facsimile ) 
203,  442,  630  f 
Quintus  Smyrnaeus,  353 
quod  and  quia,  mediaeval  use  of,  643 


668 


INDEX. 


Rabanus  (or  Hrabanus)  Maurus,  465-7; 
240,  253,  259,  469,  609,  621,  623, 
635  (cp.  Hauck,  Kirchengeschickte , 
ii  555  f) 

Radegunde  (St),  436 
Radulfus  Tortarius,  529 
Ragevinus,  633 
Ramsey  abbey,  492 
Ratherius,  484,  607,  609,  621,  629 
Raymund  of  Toledo,  540;  (2)  Ray- 
mundus  Lullius,  576 
Realism  and  Nominalism,  239,  506, 
508  f ;  extreme  Realists,  Joannes 
Scotus,  477;  Anselm,  508;  William 
of  Champeaux,  509  ;  moderate  (or 
Aristotelian)  Realists,  Alexander  of 
Hales,  551,  557,  Thomas  Aquinas, 
561,  Albertus  Magnus,  558 
Recensions  of  Latin  mss,  215  f,  230, 
235>258>  607,617,619-21,630,  634! 
Recurrent  verses,  232 
Regensburg,  467 
Regino,  480,  484 

Reichenau,  467  f ;  464,  480  n.  7,  486, 
499,  603  ;  mss  627,  629 
Remi(gius)  of  Auxerre,  478;  485,  639 
Renaissance,  precursors  of  the,  418  f, 
424,  469,  531,  588-91;  causes  of 
the  Italian,  587  ;  a  gradual  process, 
587  ;  authors  appreciated  in,  Cicero, 
588;  Virgil,  610;  Lucian,  310; 
Letters  of  Symmachus  (214)  and 
St  Jerome,  221 
Resbacus,  442 

Revivals  of  learning,  early,  586,  587  n. 
Rhapsodes,  19  f,  30  f,  101 
Rheims,  480,  485,  489,  602,  614;  St 
Thierry  near,  628 

Rhetoric,  rise  of,  76  f ;  literary  criti¬ 
cism  a  part  of,  82 
Rhianus,  120,  132 
Rhodes,  163  f 

Rich,  Edmund  (St  Edmund  of  Abing¬ 
don),  abp  of  Canterbury,  552,  567, 
570 

Richard  of  Bury,  580,  605,  610 
Richard,  (1)  l’Eveque,  517  n.,  519!; 

(2)  of  St  Victor,  534 
Richer,  489  f,  633 
Rienzi,  587 
Riquier,  St,  480 
Robertus  Retinensis,  540  n. 

Rochelle,  John  of,  552 
Rodolfus  Glaber,  494  n.  2  ;  595 
Rodolphus  of  Bruges,  513,  540  n. 
Roman  age,  dates  in  (1)  Latin  lite¬ 
rature  etc.,  166,  186,  204;  (2)  Gk. 


literature  etc.,  260,  340 ;  end  of, 
260,  375,  432 ;  Roman  historians 
who  wrote  in  Gk.,  169,  264  ;  Gk. 
influence  in  Roman  literature  (167  f) 
and  literary  criticism,  177;  Roman 
study  of  Gk.,  263-72 
Romanus  (C.  Julius),  201  ;  (2)  Byz. 
poet,  384  _ 

Rome,  Gk.  influence  in,  167  f ;  263- 
72  ;  libraries  in,  see  Libraries ; 
monasteries  for  Gk.  monks  in,  446  f ; 
Gk.  at  St  Paul’s  and  St  Peter’s, 
500  f ;  ruins  of,  529,  587  ;  Versus 
Romae ,  477  n.  1 
Roscellinus,  508  f,  578 
Rosetta  Stone,  117 
Rosla,  Heinrich,  533 
Rouen,  (Juvenal)  619  ;  cathedral  of, 
646  n. 

Rudolf,  Annals,  636 
Rufinianus,  216 

Rusticus,  his  letter  to  Eucherius,  217 
Rutilius  Lupus,  189 

Sabas,  convent  of  St,  384 
Sabbionetta,  Gherardo  di,  543 
Saevius  Nicanor,  173 
Saintsbury,  G.,  55  f,  183,  196,  280, 
286,  297,  31 1  n.  7,  373 
Salisbury,  John  of,  517  f ;  his  classical 
learning,  521  f;  facsimile  from 
Becket’s  copy  of  his  Met.  etc.  516; 
507,  511,  513,  536,  561,  581,  586  n., 
610,  617,  619  f,  621,  629,  644,  646 
Sallust,  269 ;  in  MA,  633  ;  486,  498, 
502,  590,  636  n.  4 
Salmasius,  397 

Salomo  III,  of  St  Gallen,  479 
Salvian,  208 

Sappho,  44,  270,  276,  283,  307  ;  the 
‘greater  Sapphic’  metre,  212  n.  1 
Saracen,  John  the,  520,  534 
Scaliger,  the  elder,  243 
‘  Scholar  ’  and  ‘  Scholarship  ’,  if; 
Scholarship  and  Philology,  2  f ; 
subdivisions  of  Classical  Scholar¬ 
ship,  14 

Scholastic  Problem,  the,  239  f,  505  f ; 
Scholasticism,  authorities  on,  504  n ; 
doctores  scholastici,  504 
Scholia,  on  Homer,  140;  120;  Hesiod, 
409,  420  ;  Pindar,  419,  421 ;  Aesch. 
Soph.  Eur.,  420;  Aristoph.  321, 
409,  420 ;  Dem.  348,  350 ;  Lyco- 
phron,  409  ;  Alexandrian  poets, 
142  f;  Terence,  218,  490;  Cicero, 
1 9 1,  441  ;  Virgil,  184,  235;  Horace, 


INDEX. 


669 


200;  Persius,  290;  Juvenal,  290, 
620 

Schools  of  Alexandria,  105  f,  323, 
334  f.  354  357  3^8  ;  Pergamon, 

148  f;  Athens,  343,  345,  347,  35  L 
364-8 ;  Antioch,  344,  347  ;  other 
Schools,  374,  386  ;  Schools  in  Gaul, 
209-13,  233 ;  monastic  and  cathedral 
Schools,  550 ;  see  also  under  the 
several  monasteries  and  cathedral 
cities 

‘  Science  ’,  study  of  Greek  and,  com¬ 
bined  by  Gunzo,  486,  and  Roger 
Bacon,  575 

Scot,  Michael,  544-6,  569,  571 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  2,  247,  546 
Scotus,  Duns,  576  f,  642 
Scotus  (Erigena),  Joannes,  473  f ;  225 
n.  3,  240,  369,  505,  548,  586,  623 
Scriptorium ,  599  f ;  459,  461,  466 
Scylitzes,  John,  407 
Secundus,  534 

Sedulius,  (1)  author  of  Carmen  Pas- 
chale,  235  ;  (2)  Irish  monk,  at 
Liege,  448,  614,  623,  626,  628, 

635  . 

Segueriana,  Lexica ,  406 
Seleucids,  163 
Seleucus  of  Alexandria,  289 
Selling,  William  Tilley  of,  450 
Seneca,  (1)  the  elder,  189;  in  MA, 
628;  (2)  the  younger,  9,  190;  in 
MA,  627  ;  528  n.  7,  555,  569,  574 f, 
588,  591  f,  642  ;  (3)  Pseudo-Seneca, 

435»  592 

Sereshel,  Alfred,  536,  547,  569 
Sergius,  (1)  of  Resaina,  386;  (2) 
patriarch  of  Constantinople,  381  ; 
(3)  bp  of  Naples,  486 
Serlo  Grammaticus,  524 
Servatus  Lupus,  469  f;  259,  478,  635 
Servius,  218,  225-7,  468,  486,  603; 

(2)  Servius  Clodius,  173 
Sextus  Empiricus,  177,  323 
Sextus  Pompeius,  grammarian,  468 
Shirwood,  571,  578 
Siceliotes,  John,  407 
Sidonius,  Apollinaris,  208,  230-3 
Siger  of  Brabant,  564 
Sigonius,  382 
Silius  Italicus,  622 
Silvester  II  (Gerbert  q.v .),  242,  489! 
Simon,  abbot  of  St  Albans,  600  f 
Simonides  of  Ceos,  44  f,  276,  281 
Simplicius,  368,  563 
Simulus,  56 

sincertiSy  Hugutio  on,  540  n.  1 


Sion,  on  the  upper  Rhone,  499 
Socrates,  54,  61,  68,  84,  92 
Solinus,  201,  230 

Solon,  19,  22;  his  poems,  48  f,  306 
Sopater  of  Apamea,  372 
Sophocles,  24,  57-9,  61,  63,  128, 
131,  164,  169,  276,  284^  361  f,  406, 
558;  PhilocteteSy  292;  select  plays, 
394;  bust,  302 
Sophonias,  421 
Sophron,  116 

Spain,  Greek  in,  444 ;  study  of 
Aristotle  among  the  Arabs,  539-41, 
and  Jews  in,  542 

Spara(  =  Serva)dorsum,  485  (Pertz, 
Mon.  iv  64) 

Speier  (Livy),  634;  Walther  of,  488 
Staberius  Eros,  173 
Statilius  Maximus,  201 
Statius,  196;  in  MA,  618;  442,  485, 
498,  589,  592  f,  602 
Stavelot,  (Val.  Maximus),  635 
Stephanus,  (1)  of  Alexandria,  382; 

(2)  of  Byzantium,  371 
Stephen  IV,  447;  (2)  of  St  Sabas,  384 
Stesichorus,  23,  130,  283 
Stilo,  L.  Aelius,  172 
Stobaeus,  372 

Stoics,  Grammar  of  the,  144-6 
Strabo,  273;  86 

Strassburg,  pi.  on  537,  596  n.  1,  614, 
631 

Student-songs,  mediaeval,  620 
Sublime,  treatise  on  the,  282—6 
sub scripti ones  in  mss,  215  f,  235,  258 
‘  substantive  642 

Suetonius,  196  f,  202  ;  in  MA,  635 ; 
463,  469,  478;  De  Gram.  8,  156, 
i7of;  De  Poetis ,  467  n.  2;  Prata, 
443 

Suidas,  399  ;  Grosseteste  and,  555 
Sulpicius  (1)  Apollinaris,  198  ; 
(2)  Galus,  169;  (3)  Severus,  234; 
(4)  Victor,  216 

Symbols  used  in  Greek  criticism,  126, 
131,  140 

Symeon,  (1)  the  grammarian,  405; 
(2)  ‘Magister’,  398;  (3)  Meta- 
phrastes,  398;  (4)  of  St  Mamas,  408 
Symmachus,  ( 1 )  on  Aristophanes,  321; 
(2)  cons.  391  A.D.,  214-6;  (3)  cons. 
485  A.D.,  216,  237 
Syncellus,  Michael  and  George,  385 
Synesius,  358-63;  H3  n*  2 
‘  Syntipas  \  407 
Syrian  study  of  Aristotle,  385  f 
Syrianus,  365 


670 


INDEX. 


Tacitus,  201;  in  MA,  636;  604;  De 
Oratoribus,  195 
Tarsus,  163 

Tegernsee,  626;  Metellus  of,  613 
Tennyson  and  Dion.  Hal.,  280; 

Quintus  Smyrnaeus,  354 
Terence,  169;  in  MA,  607  f;  487, 
499>  598 

Terentianus  Maurus,  200,  603 
Terentius  Scaurus,  188,  197 
Theagenes  of  Rhegium,  7,  29 
Thegan,  465 

Themistius,  345,  553  n.  10 
Theocritus,  115,  269,  270,  361 
Theodora,  mother  of  Michael  III, 
383,  388 

Theodore,  (1)  of  Mopsuestia,  344; 
(2)  of  Studion,  384 f,  388;  (3)  of 
Tarsus,  449  b  452 
Theodoret,  357,  364 
Theodoric  the  Great,  236,  238,  244-8, 
260.  (2)  Theodoric  of  Chartres, 

513;  517  n.  3,  586  n.  4;  his  Epta - 
teuchon ,  513  n.  4,  519  n.  5,  645 
Theodorus,  (1)  of  Byzantium,  79; 

(2)  Metochites,  420;  (3)  Prodromus, 

410;  354,  4*4*  573 
Theodosius  I,  341;  II,  230,  356,  374, 
632;  (3)  Alexandrian  grammarian 
{c.  400A.D.),  354;  138,  381,  573; 
(4)  Diaconus,  398 

Theodulfus,  bp  of  Orleans,  462 ;  229 
n.  4,  612,  615,  647 
Theodulus,  Eclogues  of,  515 
Theognis,  49  (cp.  E.  Harrison,  Studies , 
1902,  c.  1) 

Theognostus,  385 

Theon,  (1)  commentator  on  poets, 
142 ;  (2)  Aelius,  rhetorician  and 
commentator  on  prose  authors,  31 1; 

(3)  philosopher  and  mathematician, 
357  (all  of  Alexandria);  (4)  Theon 
of  Smyrna,  322 

Theophilus,  (1)  patriarch  of  Alexan¬ 
dria,  360,  364 ;  (2)  Byzantine  emp., 
386,  388 

Theophrastus,  99,  175,  265,  275,  277, 
284,  504 

Theophylact,  (1)408;  (2)  Simocattes, 
380,  426 

Thessalonica,  fall  of  (1185),  411,415; 

feuds  of  (1346),  423 
Thomas  Aquinas  (St),  see  Aquinas 
Thomas  Magister,  409 ;  (2)  Th. 

Scholasticus,  398 ;  (3)  Th.  of 

Celano,  530  ;  (4)  bp  of  St  David’s, 
567,  564  n.  4 


Thrasymachus,  78 

Thucydides,  on  Homer,  26,  33 ; 
influence  of  Sicilian  rhetoric  on,  82; 
Dion.  Hal.  on,  275-9;  ‘Longinus’, 
283  f;  Lucian,  308  f;  Life  of,  14T 
Tibullus,  in  MA,  621;  530,  558,  604 
Timaeus,  (1)  historian,  162 ;  (2)  lexico¬ 
grapher,  334 

Timonof  Phlius,  102, 106, 1 15, 1 19, 162 
Timotheus  of  Gaza,  369 
Tiro,  181,  201 

Toledo,  Latin  translations  from  the 
Arabic  executed  at,  523,  539  f, 
543  546,  56 5  5  Abraham  of,  542 

Toulouse,  209,  518,  527,  606 
Tours,  St  Martin  of,  207,  234,  438, 
598;  St  Martin’s  abbey  at,  252; 
Alcuin  at,  457  f,  599  f ;  Odo,  485; 
Gerbert,  489 ;  Bernard  Silvester, 
514;  mss  from,  (Nonius)  602,  (Vir¬ 
gil)  612,  (Cic.  de  Sen.)  627,  (Livy) 
634,  (Suetonius)  635;  Greek  mass 
at,  481 

Tragic  poets  (of  Athens),  text  of,  57; 

quotations  from,  58;  select  plays,  394 
Triclinius,  420;  autograph  of,  428 
Triviuniy  643 

Troy,  the  tale  of,  24-6,  34,  154,  329; 

in  MA,  524,  526,  622  f,  637 
Tryphiodorus,  357 
Tryphon,  142 
Tyrannion,  138  f 
Tyrtaeus,  48 
Tzetzes,  408  f 

Ulpian,  (1)  jurist,  330;  (2)  scholiast, 
35.0 

Uncial  characters,  461,  471 
‘  Universals ’,  controversy  on,  239, 
506;  475,  486,  508,  512,  520,  570 
Universities,  605  ;  356,  374 
Upsilon ,  90,  385 

ValeriusCato,  182,268;  (2)  Val.Pollio, 
317;  (3)  Val.  Flaccus,  mss  of,  621; 
442 ;  (4)  Val.  Maximus,  230;  in 
MA,  635;  478,  529,  604,  632;  (5) 
Q.  Valerius  of  Sora,  172 
Vandieres,  John  of,  484 
Varro,  173-6,  264;  138,  146,  172, 
178,  181  f,  188,  202,  210,  215, 
223  f,  228,  241,  257,  300;  in  MA, 
627;  476 

Varro  Atacinus,  269 
Vegetius,  230:  in  MA,  635;  466 
Velius  Longus,  184,  188,  197,  252 
Velleius  Paterculus,  603 


INDEX. 


671 


Verona,  484,  603,  608,  626 
Verrius  Flaccus,  188,  271,  457 
Verse,  passages  rendered  in  English, 
40,  56,  168,  21 1,  243,  341,  363 
Vestinus,  316 

Victor,  Julius  and  Sulpicius,  216 
Victor  III  ( Desiderius ),  500 
Victorianus,  his  recension  of  Livy, 
215  n.  6,  634 

Victorinus,  217  f;  205,  223,  239,  489, 
499>  507 

Vienne,  Council  of,  584 
Vilgardus,  595 

Vincent  of  Beauvais,  55 7  f ;  586,  638; 
Virgil,  610;  Ovid,  615;  Statius, 
618;  Martial  ( Coquus ),  619;  Ju¬ 
venal,  620;  Tibullus,  621;  Cicero, 
624  f ;  Pliny  the  younger,  630 
Vindobonense,  Lexicon ,  406 
Vinsauf,  Geoffrey  de,  526,  648  n.  4 
Virgil,  and  Lucretius,  168;  his  Greek 
originals,  269  f;  early  study  (and 
criticism)  of,  183  f;  Probus,  193; 
Gellius,  199;  in  c.  IV,  216  f;  Au- 
sonius,  21 1  ;  Servius,  218  ;  Jerome, 
221;  Augustine,  222;  Macrobius, 
225  f;  in  c.  V,  Sidonius,  23 1  f ;  As- 
terius,  235;  in  MA,  6iof;  Alcuin, 
459;  Servatus  Lupus,  471  f;  Odo, 
485;  Notker  Labeo,  499;  Anselm, 
502;  Ekkehard  I,  II,  487!;  Iiilde- 
bert,  529;  Dante,  589,  591,  611 ;  Del 
Virgilio,  589;  the  Fourth  Eclogue , 
463,  610  f,  618;  allegory  of  the 
Aeneid,  515,  610;  mss,  612;  fac¬ 
simile ,  185;  193,  235,  441  f,  459, 
598;  tomb  of,  61 1 ;  legends  of, 
61 1  n,  8,  637  (cp.  Teuffel,  §  232, 
12) 

Virgil,  (1)  bp  of  Salzburg,  448  (Wat- 
tenbach,  G.  Q.  i6  i2if);  (2)  ‘Vir- 


gilius  Maro\  the  grammarian,  437  f, 
638  (ed.  H  timer,  1886);  (3)  Giov. 
del  Virgilio,  589  f,  616 
Virgilium,  legitzir ,  643 
Vitri,  Philip  de,  615 
Vitruvius,  5,  464 
Vocabularies,  527  f,  572,  640 
Volcatius  Sedigitus,  178 
Vulgate,  220,  251,  254  n.  3,  432,  444, 
571,  591  f,  642 

Walafrid  Strabo  (or  Strabus),  467 
Walter  of  Chatillon,  617;  see  Gautier 
Waltharius  (Walter  of  Aquitaine),  488 
Wandrille’s,  St,  461 
Wibold,  or  Wibald,  abbot  of  Corvey, 
535,  624,  635  n.  2;  cp.  596 
Widukind  of  Corvey,  486 
Winric  of  Trier,  622 
Wirecker,  Nigellus,  524 
World,  expected  end  of  the,  493  f 

Xanthopulus,  422 
Xenophanes,  29 

Xenophon,  84,  86,  275,  278,  284, 
295  ;  imitated,  304,  407 
Xiphilinus,  (1)  patriarch,  401  f ;  (2) 
historian,  407 

York;  Alcuin,  455  f ;  460;  Fridugis, 
600  n. 

Zacharias,  Greek  pope,  447,  454 
Zeno,  146 

Zenodotus,  (1)  of  Ephesus,  114,  119- 
21,  127,  140;  (2)  of  M alios,  158 
Zoilus,  date  of,  108  f ;  33 
Zonaras,  historian,  414;  the  lexicon 
(406)  bearing  his  name,  probably 
by  Antonius  Monachus  (see  Stein’s 
Herodotus ,  ed.  maior,  ii  479  f) 


GREEK 


INDEX. 


airicLTiKT]  (7rTcD<m),  145 
aXXrjyopiKids,  147 
avr  La  ty pa,  12  6,  13 1,  140 
aPTWvvpLa,  137,  274 
adpiaros,  146 

dpdpov,  97,  100,  137,  144,  274 
appopiaL,  275,  277 
d<JTepLGKOS ,  126,  13 1 
’  ArriKiavd,  319 
abdrjeaaa,  36 
&(pwpct,  89,  97,  275 
Ptjtci,  nickname,  1 24 
yadapos  ( addapos ),  415 
ypap.p.aTt.K7),  7-9 
y pappaTLKT)  rpaytpdla,  88 
ypappariKos,  6  f 
ypappaTiarrjs,  6 
dida<TKa\tai,  64,  171 
dl0pd(jJT7)S,  1 19;  Cp.  139,  154 
dL7r\rj ,  13 1 

el  (name  of  letter),  90,  296 
eKddae is  of  Homer,  132 
tTrwvvpia,  91 
T]p.l<t>wva,  89,  97,  275 
Kadapais,  62 
KaraXXrjXdTTjs,  313 
KaT-qydp-qpa ,  145 
KaT7)yopo(ipevov  (r6),  98 
Kdrudev  popos,  6,  320 
KepativLov,  126 
Kidapa,  KidapLs,  43 
kXtjgis,  97 

Kpt-TIKOS,  IO 

kQXop,  126,  127,  27^ 

80,  99; 
tus,  99,  277; 
of  Didymus, 

I44>  J4^ 


XvpiKos,  43  n.  4;  cp.  265  n.  1 

peXiKd s,  43  n.  5 

peXoiroioL ,  43 

peadryjs,  ‘participle’,  148 

peroxo,  ‘participle’,  131,  274  n.  1 

pLprjais,  69-72  (on  ‘imitation’) 

/tup  and  pip,  161 
6f3eXos,  126,  131 

ovopa,  prjpa,  go  f,  97  f,  100,  1 31, 
137  f,  144  f,  148 
08  (name  of  letter),  90 
iraduv,  Trepl,  I41 
irapaypacpr),  80,  97 
7 rapaarjpop,  97 
TrtvradXos,  124 
TTivaKes,  122,  129,  156 
ttol6t7]S  and  7 roadrrjs,  267 
TTTUGIS,  97;  xroxreis,  97,  138,  145 
pa\f/ipd6s,  23  n.  2 
aLXXvpos,  122 

CTLypr),  125,  131,  140,  315 
abpfiapa,  145 
abpdeapos,  80,  97,  274 
<rx°Xa<TTiK6s,  504 
TVTTTW,  ^138,  355 
87to/3o\^s,  &f,  19  n.  2 
virodiaGToXT),  125 
VTrodtcreis,  128 

viroKelpevov  (to),  subjectum,  98 
viropota,  29 
tfi/^os,  282  f 
< pavracrLa ,  72,  327 

6X0705  (and  (piXoXoyla ),  4  f  j  331, 


89,  97,  275, 
daata,  275 
<?7a),  90 


307 


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